I have been a vegetarian for six days now, and sweet lord, do I want a cheeseburger.

Here’s the story. I work for a decent-sized daily newspaper here in eastern Illinois, one that makes very little distinction between the news and features departments. By that I mean the news writers are the feature writers, and thus have to come up with interesting ideas for stories we can tell in our own voices. One of the many categories of features we have to write is called “Out of My Element,” for which each writer must devise some way of dropping into situations we would never encounter in our normal lives.

Most writers on staff have chosen quick and dirty solutions to this problem – working on a farm for an afternoon, for example, or attending a blind dating service. As for me, I decided that if I have to do one of these, I’m going to use it to improve my life. I know a few people who have chosen the veggie way of life, and they are all thin and healthy. Since the exercise thing isn’t working for me lately, I figured I would change my diet, and find a way to get paid for doing so.

So from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve, I have foresworn meat of all types. No steak, no chicken, no fish. I spoke with a couple of dieticians, who steered me away from the vegan thing – I was planning to go full bore, and give up everything produced by an animal, presumably to show what a ballsy man I am, but logic has prevailed. I’m eating eggs, I’m drinking milk. If I liked cheese, I’d be eating that, too. Yesterday I had a fantastic vegetarian omelet, easily the best thing I’ve eaten since starting this process, and with each bite, I thanked my friendly advisors for dissuading me from my macho moment.

So, six days in, and I am starting to wonder why I’m doing this. I have lost four pounds as of this morning, which is good, but goddamn, I want a steak, or a chicken sandwich. I have Garden Burgers to try out this afternoon – not the most inspiring prospect, but I’m already kind of sick of lettuce and carrots. Time to broaden the old horizons. The biggest problems will be Christmas Eve, and my grandmother’s 90th birthday the week before. No doubt my aunt will slave over the stove for days, preparing a sumptuous meal for my grandmother’s party, and I won’t be able to sample much of it at all.

Yeah, this is starting to look more and more like a silly idea. I’ll let you know if I crack.

* * * * *

The dedicated staff here at tm3am does their very best to keep up with the onslaught of new releases each year, but we regret that sometimes, things get by us. This year especially, literally dozens of worthy new records came and went, with nary a mention on this site. Need I point out that tm3am purports to be a comprehensive source for insight on worthwhile new music? We can hardly afford such oversights, especially when faced with such pitiful excuses as “full-time work” and “needing at least an hour’s sleep a night” and “deathly illness.” Did you die? No? Then it wasn’t a deathly illness, was it? Suck it up and keep working!

Anyway, we here at tm3am apologize for the numerous holes in our coverage of what’s hip and new this year, and we assure you that it won’t happen again. Until it does, of course. But the staff members responsible for these missing reviews have been sacked. In fact, the whole staff has been sacked, leaving me to try to make amends all on my own. It’s a rough life, and I beg your pity and indulgence whilst I attempt to catch up on some forgotten gems of 2005.

I do have something of an idea for the final week of the year, something that will allow me to do what I wanted to do last year with my enormous pile of unreviewed CDs, but couldn’t wrap my brain around. I started to type up a huge column, with pithy and full-blooded comments on each one of the 50 or so leftovers from 2004, but the result was so dry and boring that I scrapped it completely and just talked about my new iPod. Which was also dry and boring, but by that time I had no choice but to run with it. The staff member responsible for that lousy decision has also been sacked.

I think I’ve figured out how to make it work, though, so I’ll be trying it on December 28. In the meantime, though, there are a few albums that merit longer discussions, ones that slipped through the cracks earlier this year. Make no mistake – the top 10 list is done (barring an amazing showing from Ryan Adams, who releases 29 the day before I plan to post my picks), and none of these three records will be anywhere near it. But they’re all varying shades of decent, and I really should have mentioned them when they came out.

So, mea culpa, and on with the show:

* * * * *

I am not sure if Supergrass plans to break up anytime soon, but their new album sounds very much like a swan song.

It’s got a really cheeky title, Road to Rouen, that could also be taken as a sign of impending collapse. It features a more serious tone throughout than their last outing, the amazing Life on Other Planets, and includes more strings and horns than any record they have done, as if the band pulled out all the stops for one last triumph. It follows a greatest hits album, the surest sign that a band, especially one with no hits, is searching for ideas. It also concludes with a little ditty called “Fin,” which includes lines like, “I see the end someday,” and, “You know it’s a long way home.”

All signs point to this as a concerted final effort from a dynamite band, one that really should have experienced more success in its decade-plus. On their four previous records, they were cultural assimilators, pulling little bits from here and there and somehow making a coherent whole out of them without sacrificing their core sounds. This isn’t Beck’s standard put-the-‘70s-in-a-blender approach, but rather the reverent and labor-intensive work of true pop connoisseurs. If a bass line was supposed to sound like the Velvet Underground, then by God, it sounded like the Velvet Underground, even if the guitars sounded like Stealers Wheel and the pianos like Elton John.

Road to Rouen is much less that, and much more the serious singer-songwriter side of the band. In fact, the whole album has more than a touch of another band whose name starts with super. There’s more than a little Even in the Quietest Moments to Rouen, especially in its epic first half. The record runs a little more than 35 minutes, but it still manages to pack two huge numbers and an overall sense of scope in its tiny running time. Opener “Tales of Endurance Parts 4, 5 and 6” brings the brass sections to bear, and is an album side in miniature, while first-side closer “Roxy” is a massive undertaking, anchored by Robert Coombes’ electric piano and his brother Gaz’ voice.

The second half, neatly delineated by the cartoon-jazz instrumental “Coffee in the Pot,” is more rollicking, and more standard Supergrass. The title track contains a guitar lick I couldn’t place for the longest time, until I remembered that it’s one my high school band used once. That song and “Kick in the Teeth” provide Rouen with its most energetic seven minutes, as it peters to a close with the down-home “Low C” and the sad “Fin.” There’s a bit of Lennon to “Low C,” and in classic Supergrass form, when Coombes wants his voice to achieve that Lennon effect, it really does.

Still, if this is the last gasp from Supergrass, I’ll be disappointed. They deserve a better record to go out on. This one just doesn’t capture the effervescent, genre-hopping wonder of their best stuff, even if their sense of melody is intact. Road to Rouen contains eight good songs, not counting the “Coffee” break, and it’s just not enough. Some will say that a good album will leave you wanting more. Well, Road to Rouen certainly does that, though not in the best way – it’s a very good 35 minutes, but it should be longer, and it should be better.

* * * * *

Supergrass is at a disadvantage, however – it’s hard to get people to appreciate the merely very good, when you’ve already given them excellence. One sure way to garner great reviews of your work is to suck out loud at the beginning, and then get progressively better, so that your latest record leaves your first few in the dirt. It also helps if you score a chart-busting hit during your suck-out-loud phase, so that the comparison is easily drawn – what good is a shitty debut that no one hears? For the indie-cred thing to work, you need to have a well-known history, an albatross hanging about your neck, so that you can loudly and proudly disown it.

Too cynical? Probably. After all, who would have predicted in 1996 that Nada Surf would ever be any good? They first stormed the scene with their all-too-ironic “Popular,” a caterwauling mess that seemed to slap Thurston Moore across the face with every intoned verse. The rest of their debut record, High/Low, was utterly forgettable, another in a cavalcade of one-hit blunders that seemed to dot the ‘90s like Starbuckses and Wal-Marts. There was nothing there that made me glad I’d heard it, and I got it for free.

After their second album, The Proximity Effect, was ditched by their major label, the sun should have set on their career. But no – this tenacious New York trio struggled to get Proximity released, and then soldiered on, getting better and better as they went. 2002’s Let Go was a kind of revelation, full of semi-sparkling tunes. It was still spotty, but one certainly got the sense that this band was headed somewhere, and it wasn’t the cut-out bin at Sam Goody, or a slot on VH-1’s Bands Reunited.

And now, against all odds, here is Nada Surf’s fourth album, The Weight is a Gift, and it’s their first solid, completely successful effort. It would be easy to pass this off as Nada Surf’s bid for that all-important indie credibility – it’s produced by Chris Walla, of it-band Death Cab for Cutie, and it was released by Barsuk Records, Death Cab’s erstwhile home. The packaging is also a little indie-wonder, consisting of a hand-drawn and cut-out cityscape, but it’s pretty much wonderful just the same.

The thing is, these songs don’t need any additional credibility – they’re great on their own. Weight opens with “Concrete Bed,” one of the year’s sprightliest singles, revolving around the line, “To find someone you love, you’ve got to be someone you love.” By the time you get through the 11 selections on this too-short offering, it becomes clear that this album is the sound of Nada Surf being someone they love.

The bare, acoustic base and ballad-heavy core of Let Go is pretty much gone here, and in its place is a fully formed rock band sound. “Always Love” is a sweet anthem that saves its best melodic punch for the climactic bridge, and lead throat Matthew Caws stretches his voice to limber new heights on “What Is Your Secret” and the lovely “Your Legs Grow.” Throughout, Walla’s production brings out the best in this band, layering great harmonies and pulling delicate sounds from Caws’ guitar. The record ends, too soon, with its punchiest number, “Imaginary Friends.”

I’ve said this before about other bands and other records, but nothing here is going to set the world on fire. It’s just some really good songs, played by a band so excited to have written them that they translate that sense of rebirth to the overall sound. Nada Surf has never sounded better than this, and never come up with a set of tunes this indelible before. Far from the fate of most of their mid-‘90s peers, Nada Surf have found a way to build and get better every time out. This album is one of the year’s most delightful surprises.

* * * * *

It’s easy, with bands like Supergrass and Nada Surf, to be either impressed or disappointed, since neither one has ever strayed far from their basic sound. Not so with Mark Eitzel – you never really know what you’re going to get from this guy. He fronted American Music Club for years, and that band stayed fairly static – their reunion album from last year, Love Songs for Patriots, sounded like it could slot right in with their ‘90s catalog. But Eitzel’s solo career is another matter altogether.

Let’s see. He’s been a jazzy crooner (60 Watt Silver Lining), an acoustic troubadour (Caught in a Trap and I Can’t Back Out Because I Love You Too Much Baby), a techno-ambient songsmith (The Invisible Man), and an interpreter of classic soul numbers (Music for Courage and Confidence). Most recently, he took to reinventing his own work with a group of traditional Greek musicians on The Ugly American. Really, there’s no telling where he will go next.

So what does one make of a new Eitzel album called Candy Ass? Which Mark is going to show up this time? Even the album cover, with its depiction of one of those crapshoot claw games that never net you anything, seems to taunt you, its neon-emblazoned “Good Luck” almost giggling and winking. The title and track listing offer no help. Neither do the liner notes, or rather, what liner notes there are. You either buy this because you’re an Eitzel fan, or you don’t buy it at all.

As it turns out, Candy Ass picks up where The Invisible Man left off, kind of. The acoustic opener “My Pet Rat St. Michael” is deceptive – there isn’t another one like it. The album is roughly half instrumental, with Eitzel exploring the electronic soundscapes that were on the fringes of Invisible, his last album of all-new material. Songs like “Cotton Candy Tenth Power” and “A Loving Tribute to My City” are basically formless, with subtle beats and ambient waves of noise. Elsewhere, he combines the electronics with his penchant for downbeat melancholy – “Homeland Pastoral” is achingly sweet, Eitzel’s hangdog voice grounding the gauzy layers of synthesizers.

Overall, Candy Ass is the most atmospheric record Eitzel has ever made, and I mean that in the sense that it floats away into the air even while it’s playing. Melodies are few and directionless, and his voice only adorns half the songs. What’s left are the textures, and Eitzel seems particularly fascinated with drones this time out, so that the entire record serves as a sleeping pill. When he nearly wakes up, as on “Roll Away My Stone,” the genuine sense of songcraft gets drowned out by the surrounding walls of keyboard noise. He even ends the album on an ironic note – “Guitar Lover” is a six-minute instrumental that contains no guitars at all.

I’m making this album sound intolerable, and it’s not. It’s actually surprisingly effective as a mood piece, but those looking for Mark Eitzel the singer-songwriter may want to look elsewhere, or wait for another AMC album. This is the sad sack at his most experimental, so much so that it sounds like a complete misfire on first listen. Witness the accordions-in-a-car-accident bridge of “Green Eyes,” one of many things here the likes of which Eitzel has never tried before. I eventually grew to like Candy Ass, although I can’t say I understand the motivation behind it. Still, if you’re new to Mark Eitzel, I’d recommend you start somewhere else – anywhere else, actually.

* * * * *

I just found out that Julian Cope’s follow-up to Citizen Cain’d is out – it is, as promised, called Dark Orgasm, and it’s another two-CD affair. A copy is winging its way to me as we speak, though I doubt it will be here in time for next week’s planned look at some late-year mail-order marvels. After that, there’s Beck and Ryan Adams, and the top 10 list. It’s amazing how quickly 2005 disappeared, isn’t it?

I also just tried my first Garden Burger. The bad news is that it doesn’t taste anything like a hamburger, but the good news is that it isn’t at all disgusting. I actually kind of liked it, weird texture and all, although the aftertaste leaves something to be desired. Only 24 days to go…

See you in line Tuesday morning.

A short review of a long record this week.

I am a big fan of CD packaging, and the guys in System of a Down have just made me very happy. When the Armenian-via-Los-Angeles quartet originally announced their plan to release two albums this year, they hammered the point home over and over – this is a double album, meant to be heard all at once. That it came out in installments (Mezmerize (sic) in May, and Hypnotize this week) was not their choice, they said, but rather a compromise with American Records.

Who knows how true that is, since two albums means twice the cash for both the label and the band, and putting out two records (or even three) in one year is becoming a more accepted practice. (I’m looking at you, Ryan Adams…) But the band also promised that the packaging for Mezmerize and Hypnotize would reflect that they were intended as two halves of a whole. When Mezmerize came out, I couldn’t make sense of the package – the cover image was upside down, as was the text on the spine, and it opened from the left side, throwing the whole thing into confusion.

But now that Hypnotize is here, it all makes sense. The two Digipaks are designed to connect and form one double-album package, and it works brilliantly. The two covers face outward, the spines line up, and the artwork inside reveals a symmetry one could not have guessed from just the first installment. It’s my favorite package of the year, without a doubt – inventive and illuminating. I know that most people don’t care about the packages their CDs come in, but an old-fashioned albums guy like me appreciates the time and effort that went into designing something like this.

In a way, the music undergoes a similar transformation when listened to as a whole. Mezmerize is without doubt the best heavy record of the year, and System the most daring and varied metal band I’ve encountered in many a moon. But it is really short, and feels unfinished. Meanwhile, Hypnotize feels less like a stand-alone album and more like the second half, the more serious and introspective counter to Mezmerize’s antics. Mezmerize can work on its own, but it sounds incomplete. Hypnotize cannot, but it effectively completes its brother. They are two halves of a whole, just as the band promised.

There’s good news and bad news there. Hypnotize is absolutely married to Mezmerize, but it is also inferior in a number of important ways, and it drags the whole project down. Mezmerize was one home run after another, but Hypnotize brings the batting average down with some frustratingly mediocre passages, particularly in its first half. If you look at them as separate records, Hypnotize feels like the rushed follow-up, the diminished returns from an extended recording schedule, the songs they felt weren’t good enough for Mezmerize. You can love one and like the other, and all is well.

But it’s obvious that the band doesn’t view them as separate pieces, and they do connect well. While “Lost in Hollywood” sounds like the moment right at the end when Mezmerize runs out of gas, it makes an effective bridge in double-album form from disc one’s manic brilliance to disc two’s more traditional metalscapes. Nothing on disc two sports the wondrously kinetic ADD of “Revenga,” or the explosiveness of “Cigaro,” or even the melodic radio-readiness of “B.Y.O.B.” I said in May that if System could keep the boundless energy of disc one going for the whole thing, they’d have one of the best records of the year on their hands, and sadly, they didn’t.

What they did isn’t half bad, though, and if System had not raised their own bar so high with their opening salvo, the conclusion wouldn’t be as disappointing. Hypnotize crashes to life with “Attack,” the most incendiary thing here, which finds singer Serj Tankian taking aim at media propaganda and government lies, as usual. It sounds for all the world like you’ve just cued up side three – the band is in mid-assault, like they’ve just returned from intermission. The following five songs are varying shades of forgettable, although guitarist Daron Malakian, who owns this whole project, is precise as a smart bomb throughout.

Things pick up with “U-Fig,” and the dirge-like “Holy Mountains,” all about the Armenian genocide after World War I. But they really kick into gear with “Vicinity of Obscenity,” the one song here that reflects the flitting genius of Mezmerize. One of the chief problems with Hypnotize is that System seems intent on becoming just another good metal band. Replace Tankian with James Hetfield, and “Holy Mountains” could be a Metallica song, whereas no other metal band on the planet would do something as potentially embarrassing (and fitfully smart) as “Vicinity of Obscenity.” “Banana banana terracotta pie,” indeed.

Another big problem – perhaps the biggest – with Hypnotize is that Daron Malakian needs to shut the hell up. This album all but announces him as the co-lead singer, and there’s a reason he’s the guitarist and Serj Tankian is the vocalist. Malakian’s voice is thin and reminiscent of Geddy Lee’s, in a way. There’s nothing special about it. Tankian, on the other hand, is like Mike Patton mixed with Mel Blanc. He’s unhinged, insane, and fantastic, able to jump from voice to voice, octave to octave. His evil cartoon rantings took Mezmerize up that one notch it needed to go, and they are all but missing from Hypnotize. It’s another example of System forgetting what makes them special.

As a single album, Mezmerize/Hypnotize gets progressively more serious and less snarky as it goes along, and perhaps not coincidentally, the energy level is nearly nonexistent by the time Malakian is lamenting “the most loneliest day” of his life. The whole thing ends with “Soldier Side,” reprising the introduction to disc one, and further tying everything together – but alas, “Soldier Side” worked better as a minute-long intro than as a four-minute song.

All together, this double record is 76 minutes, too, which means it could easily have been released on one CD. The more cynical among you may surmise that the band knew which songs were amazing and which were merely good, arranged them accordingly, released the amazing ones first accompanied by a lot of hype about double records and needing the second half, and then designed a package that makes no sense unless you have both parts, all to ensure sales of their inferior stuff and make more money. I’m not quite that cynical, and enough of Hypnotize is good enough to make me think otherwise, but it’s worth discussing.

System of a Down is a fiercely political band, railing against rampant capitalism and injustice, and greed is not a quality I would readily ascribe to them. This two-album project slots together as seamlessly as its packaging does, and I am willing to bet that the band sees Mezmerize/Hypnotize as one large work. Whether they see it as falling short of their ambitions is another matter. They are still the standard-bearers for intelligent metal – the dumbest thing about them is their name – but this record is only the sum of its parts, no more.

This should have been System’s defining work, but instead it ended up overly long and somewhat underbaked, with a second-half dearth of the band’s best qualities. System needs to re-focus, they need to remember what sets them above their peers (hint: it involves remembering who the singer is), and they need to make a single, diamond-hard, 40-minute masterpiece next time out. It’s almost a shame the two albums are so intertwined – Mezmerize, by itself, might have made my top 10 list this year, but the album as a whole doesn’t quite add up.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Next week, I play catch-up.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m late again. I know it.

I have a good excuse, though – this week our usual courts and crime reporter was on vacation, and it fell to me to cover a lengthy sentencing hearing in a child sex abuse case. Let me just say this – the regular courts and crime reporter has nothing to fear from me. He can keep his job.

We’re quickly approaching the end of the year, and I’ve already written three drafts of my top 10 list. There are couple of wild cards to go – System of a Down releases Hypnotize next week, and Ryan Adams completes his 2005 trifecta with 29 in December – but it’s taking shape. And as usual, I’m contemplating how to finish up my year, column-wise. Next week I’ll review System, the week after that I’ll catch up on a few worthy records I overlooked, and then there’s one new album a week until Christmas.

This may be the first year of TM3AM’s existence in which I don’t take a single week off, in fact. I may even have to do two of them on Christmas week to get my review of Ryan Adams in before the top 10 list, but we’ll see. I also have something interesting planned for the last week of the year, if I’m not too burned out by that point.

Anyway, that leaves this week, and I figured I’d dive into the flood of late-round live albums that usually smack us in November. This year has been no exception – the record companies love to wait for the Christmas season to release double-disc and CD/DVD live documents that would look great under the tree, or in a suitably large stocking. The best part for them is that there’s little to no work required on their part – no wrangling of “difficult” artists in a studio, no unpredictable results, just a live recording packaged up and spit-shined. Minimal investment, enormous return, especially around the holidays.

Perhaps the highest-profile of these this year is Green Day’s Bullet in a Bible, a concert film and a live album in one. Designed as a capper to this California trio’s biggest year ever, Bullet is a lavish package, containing three and a half hours of material, and more sneering and eye makeup and fake British accents than anyone should ever be asked to take in all at once. It is obviously intended to be Green Day’s Rattle and Hum, their Stop Making Sense, and why it wasn’t given a theatrical release is kind of beyond me. It would have done very well.

Green Day is back on top of the world, 16 years into their run, thanks to an immensely popular, monolithic beast of an album called American Idiot. Watching Bullet, it struck me that I never really reviewed Idiot, other than to mention that it didn’t come anywhere near my 2004 top 10 list. Let’s rectify that right now – American Idiot is, by far, the best album Green Day has ever made. A twisty rock opera that contains a couple of multi-song suites and more interesting instrumentation than any of their other records, Idiot deserves its accolades, relatively speaking.

Green Day, however, is not a great band, and the best record they’ve ever made is still just pretty good. The proclamations of genius are, as usual, baffling to me. Idiot is Green Day’s attempt to not just sound like early Clash, but take on their political consciousness as well. Despite its studio sheen, it is probably the most punk record they have made, thankfully devoid of the self-obsessed whining that has plagued Billie Joe Armstrong’s lyrics since day one. It is a record that wants to say something, that wants to mean something, and it almost gets there.

So high marks for ambition, but the songwriting is, as usual, kind of flat. The standard three-chord rawk still prevails, and the two nine-minute excursions are really just 10 smaller songs, compressed together with little connective tissue. Some numbers are wonderful – the singles “Holiday” and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” are the best things on the record, and “Letterbomb” is right behind – but some of it is rote and forgettable, and an album as revered as this one seems to be should have no dead spots. American Idiot is a huge step up for a modestly talented band, but it doesn’t go far enough to justify the hoopla.

And Bullet in a Bible is all hoopla, so you can imagine my indifference to a lot of it. The most interesting aspect of the tour documented here is the spectacle – long gone are the days when Billie Joe, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool (a nickname that should be wearing thin by one’s late thirties, wouldn’t you think?) would just bash out the tunes. The current Green Day includes a second guitarist, a piano player and a horn section. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but what you’re seeing on this film is a massive effort that took dozens of people to pull off, more a show than a concert, in a way.

Of course, Bullet focuses most of its attention on American Idiot, including seven of its songs, and naturally all of its singles. It kicks off with the title track, then launches into “Jesus of Suburbia,” the better of the two epics, and by the time they’re done with that one, you should realize that the live versions are not going to differ tremendously from the studio ones. How can they, with the hundred or so people working lights, cameras, sound, every aspect of this rigidly timed affair? Green Day is a good live band, even under these conditions, and they do stretch out more as the album continues, but mostly, this is recitation with audience noise.

When the band veers into its back catalog, the exponential improvement that is American Idiot is placed into sharp relief. The older hits have not aged well, especially “Basket Case,” an overplayed and overhyped slice of banality even in 1994. Their progression is fun to trace – the Nimrod shuffle “King For a Day” is given a dustoff, and it feels like the first tentative step into versatility that it was. The live version incorporates the Isley Brothers’ “Shout” and Monty Python’s “Always Look On the Bright Side of Life,” if you can believe that, in the album’s most invigorating moment.

But of course, they close with “Good Riddance,” which may still be their biggest hit. It’s a good song, but amazingly, I’m still sick of it, eight years later, and I found I didn’t need to hear it again. I would have preferred if Bullet had ended with “Minority,” here given an extended coda and a fine finish. Even in its electric form, which periodically threatens to turn into a full-band punk-o-rama, “Good Riddance” is underwhelming – pretty, but nothing special.

The audio portion of Bullet in a Bible is less than half the story – the concert film gives a better sense of what it was like to be at this biggest of Green Day shows, and makes clear that some studio wizardry was undertaken to clean up and shorten the CD. Bullet the film is two and a half hours long, its stage footage interspersed with interviews and documentary clips, and it’s enjoyable, though I don’t feel like I know the guys any better after watching it. The movie is recommended if you want the full picture, but only if you’re prepared for the two minutes of faux on-stage masturbation during “Longview.” I could have lived without it.

* * * * *

Green Day may have bored me, but they didn’t actively piss me off. Leave it to the Mars Volta to do that.

The guys in TMV are talented, and exceptional players. There’s no doubt about that. When they are on, they are astounding, blazing through some of the most interesting progressive-jazz-metal-salsa-what-have-you I’ve heard since Frank Zappa’s time. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, particularly, is an idiosyncratic guitar master, slashing and cartwheeling when others would be staying in strict time with the drums and bass. Nothing about his work is stock or expected.

Why, then, do he and his cohort, gravity-defying vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala, exhibit such a fondness for pointless filler noise? Their second album, Frances the Mute, hit earlier this year, and there’s an hour or so of the most explosive, original rock of 2005 on there, no question. But the album is 77 minutes long, and the remaining time is filled up with effects, tape noise, random chimes, and overall frippery. Does it add atmosphere? Maybe, if you have the patience for it, but I can’t help fixating on how much stronger an album Frances would have been without all that pretentious crap.

And now here’s Scabdates, a self-produced live document that runs 72 minutes, and includes only five songs. I don’t mind jams – I love them, in fact, especially if you can hear and feel the band heading into uncharted directions as they play. There’s some of that here, but not much. The extended running times are padded out with long, ass-aching voids, like the drums-and-space sections of Grateful Dead shows. In some cases, like “Caviglia,” the entire song is random squalling.

Ordinarily, this wouldn’t bother me, but the band is so rarely firing on all cylinders on Scabdates that the whole thing tries my patience. The album starts with four minutes of noise called “Abrasions Mount the Timpani,” then vaults into a 13-minute run-through of “Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt,” complete with sub-sections that are little more than Bixler-Zavala yelping over repetitive grooves. His most self-indulgent Robert Plant tendencies come to the fore here, and if you liked that band’s 30-minute live takes on “Dazed and Confused,” you will like this.

Me, I think that Zeppelin was remarkable everywhere but on the stage, and I never listen to The Song Remains the Same, or that other live thing they came out with a couple of years ago. There’s a point where looseness just overcomes structure and flops around on the floor, and the Mars Volta glibly vault right over that point. I don’t want to give the impression that Scabdates is a mess, but… wait, yes I do. It’s a big explosion of bass riffs and guitar solos and vocal acrobatics with nothing to hang it on. There’s maybe 20 minutes of song, all told, on this whole thing.

Is this a problem? Well, not if you dig this sort of thing. If the 10-minute found-sound noise sculpture in the album’s final movement sounds like something you want to sit through, then you’ll love this. This kind of thing always reminds me of Andy Warhol, though – “I have made shit, I know it is shit, but if I am deeply committed to considering it art of the highest order, I can convince people it is not shit.”

The difference is, Warhol couldn’t paint, and the Mars Volta boys can really play. The parts of Scabdates that truly demonstrate that are the ones that sound the most like an old-time jazz session, like Miles Davis finally achieving that rock band sound he had been aiming for. There’s about half an hour of absolutely amazing stuff here, most of it in the early going of the 42-minute “Cicatriz.” Rodriguez-Lopez plays like a man possessed, and his not-specifically-named drummer and bassist are almost demonic. (There are 21 people listed here as “The Mars Volta Group,” and no indication of what they all do.) But it’s the superb stuff that makes the wankery sound even more like what it is.

Yes, I am probably being too harsh here. I’m not sure what I was expecting when I bought Scabdates, if not this. Lately, though, I have been too much in love with the idea of the well-crafted song to have the patience for something this freeform. Right now, I am re-listening to “Cicatriz,” and the playing is excellent in the early, jammier sections. I am still left wondering, though – if I had attended this show, how long would I have stayed? At what point on Scabdates would I have said, “That’ll be enough of that,” and just left?

* * * * *

And speaking of pissing me off, there is Wilco.

If I had a category in the year-end list for Biggest Disappointment, Wilco’s A Ghost is Born would have won last year’s prize, hands down. The record found leader Jeff Tweedy floundering in the wake of their best work, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and the departure of its co-architect, Jay Bennett. He responded by strapping on his guitar for a few tracks of flailing, then sinking into boredom for the rest. The nadir of the album (and of Wilco’s whole catalog) was the 12 minutes of ear-numbing noise appended to “Less Than You Think” – nothing the Mars Volta has done matches that for self-indulgence.

Naturally, Tweedy waited until his band was seemingly at its weakest to record their first live album, Kicking Television. Laid down in early May of this year at Chicago’s lovely Vic Theatre (yes, I’ve been there), the album includes three-fourths of Ghost, comprising the lion’s share of the selections. Just a quick gander at the track listing made me dread hearing this thing, but I live near Chicago, and the buzz surrounding those gigs in May has been astounding. Some fans I talked to called them the best Wilco gigs they’d ever seen.

So I spun Kicking Television, and you know what? It’s excellent. The band is tight, and adventurous, and even Tweedy sounds excited to be there – the bored and sleepy tone that permeated Ghost is all but gone. Most of the nine songs from that album come alive on stage, in ways I didn’t expect. “Company in My Back” still makes no sense, but the interplay between guitar and piano is terrific, and “The Late Greats,” buried at the end of Ghost, here jumps out as a sweet little singalong. The band breathes life into slogs like “Hell is Chrome” and “Handshake Drugs,” and zips through “Hummingbird” delightfully.

As good as the songs from Ghost sound, the seven selections from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot sound even better. YHF is that rare album that demands front-to-back listening, but is made up of fantastic songs that work separately as well. Slotting something like “Wishful Thinking” right before a masterpiece like “Jesus, Etc.” really shines a harsh light on the former. The live band makes all things equal, in a way, and the YHF material stands as the brightest stuff here.

Wilco only jumps backwards thrice, for the set-opening “Misunderstood” and the Summerteeth favorites “Shot in the Arm” and “Via Chicago,” which only demonstrates how rapid their ascent into more progressive areas has been. Still, it’s the more traditional, rock ‘n’ roll stuff that shines brightest on Kicking Television, especially the two selections from the Mermaid Avenue sessions, during which Wilco and Billy Bragg wrote music to some of Woody Guthrie’s poems. “One By One” is amazing in its live setting, sounding like a true American classic.

The band follows up the Guthrie material with a four-song string of YHF tunes, and it’s the most enjoyable stretch here. Of course, Tweedy had to screw it up, and he did by capping the set proper with “Spiders (Kidsmoke).” It was a tedious disaster on record, and it’s only marginally more interesting live, just endless, mindless epileptic soloing over a one-note groove for 11 minutes. He pulls it out at the end with a beautiful cover of Charles Wright’s “Comment (If All Men Were Truly Brothers),” which closes the set with elegance.

Such a dazzling live document was, to say the least, unexpected, but Kicking Television is a well-spent two hours, and a redemption after the messy Ghost. In fact, this record has made me want to revisit A Ghost is Born and perhaps revise my opinion – I find I like a lot of the songs from it a lot more in this setting than on the studio release. Maybe Wilco was ahead of me again. Either way, with this new lineup in place, I am looking forward to the next Wilco album, which is something I couldn’t say before listening to Kicking Television. It has restored my hope. What more could I want?

* * * * *

Next week, System of a Down, probably.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Michael Pretzel is a Greek God

I think everyone should see Mike Roe play, at least once, before they die.

The problem is, he doesn’t play the big rooms – at least, not anymore. There was a time, decades ago, when his band the 77s were the Next Big Thing. They were on Island Records, touring decent venues, and poised for a breakthrough with a song called “Do It for Love.” And then a funny thing happened.

It was called The Joshua Tree.

The Sevens’ label mates U2 exploded in popularity, and Island forgot all about Mike Roe. That was 1987, but Roe has still had to make the rent payments in the ensuing 18 years, and so he keeps making amazing music. And he keeps touring. Only now, he plays venues like the Union in Naperville, a tiny ex-church that seats about 50, and, at the moment, rests between two roadblocks in the middle of a construction zone. If you don’t know about the Union, you can’t really get to it to discover it.

I’m trying not to think of that as a metaphor for Roe’s late-period career, but it’s tough. If you don’t already know about him, or know someone who knows about him, chances are you won’t ever discover his work. And I am here to tell you that not only is all of that work worth discovering, but seeing Mike Roe, alone on stage with an acoustic guitar, is positively life-changing. He’s able to do things with six strings and a voice that, were I able to do them, I would never leave my room.

Roe is on tour with Michael Pritzl, the lead visionary in the Violet Burning, an altogether different proposition. The Violets are a dramatic, widescreen rock band, with more than a little U2 influence. Pritzl is an incredible performer, an emotional lightning rod who bleeds all over any stage he inhabits. I have seen Pritzl with TVB and on his own, and he’s never less than captivating. He takes his music very seriously, though, which makes him an odd pairing with a wiseass like Roe.

Or, at least, that’s what I thought before I saw them last week. The show is billed as Roe vs. Pritzl, which led me to believe there would be a fistfight of some kind. While I was disappointed on that score, I walked away totally satisfied on every other level. I feared before the show that the “vs.” in the touring name would be sadly accurate – that the two different styles would clash, not mesh.

I was pleasantly and amazingly surprised. Pritzl and Roe each played a solo set, which further illuminated their differences – Pritzl’s was hushed and gorgeous, full of drama and emotion, while Roe’s was upbeat and funny. Roe looks more like Robert Smith every time I see him, and his hangdog sarcasm was in full bloom. But the highlight of the show, stunningly, was their concluding set together. They played old classics from the Sevens and TVB, complementing each other in ways I hadn’t imagined. They made each other’s songs better – quite a feat, considering the songs.

The undisputed highlight for me was “I Can’t Get Over It,” a menacing number from that very 77s album Island Records put out in 1987. I’ve seen Roe probably eight times, all told, and I’ve never heard him play this tune, despite its status among fans as one of his best. Somehow, Pritzl brought out more of the creepiness and power in the song – it was mesmerizing. Oh, and hearing a forgotten gem like “The Rain Kept Falling in Love” was pretty great, too.

But here’s the part I loved watching – Pritzl let his hair down (metaphorically speaking) and unveiled a dry sense of humor. He’s usually a pretty serious guy, but he and Roe bantered like an old Vaudeville act, and it was so cool to see him having fun on stage. Pritzl vs. Roe tour dates are available here and here – if it’s anywhere near you, I highly recommend it. And if you want a quick primer on both artists, and what to expect on this tour, visit their webstores and buy Pritzl’s Hollow Songs and Roe’s Say Your Prayers. They are both beautiful acoustic records, and well worth checking out.

The quote in bold above, by the way, was uttered by a rambunctious little kid who darted back and forth in front of the stage during the show. Pritzl and Roe had endless fun with this boy, and he added to the loose, fun atmosphere of the show. A splendid time was had by all.

* * * * *

A Bush I Could Vote For

The first time I heard Kate Bush, I thought she was doing a really good Tori Amos impression.

This was a little more than a decade ago, and I plead ignorance – of course Bush came first, and of course Tori took more from her than from anyone. The impassioned, teetering vocals, the oddball lyrics, the self-harmonizing, even the tendency to pause for maximum effect during piano-vocal numbers – it’s all from Kate Bush, the original mad magician. She is, and always will be, one of the most dazzling and strange female artists in the world, when she decides to make music.

Which isn’t very often, unfortunately: the British wonder’s first album, The Kick Inside, was released in 1978, and her eighth, Aerial, came out on Tuesday. To give you some idea of how long Bush worked on Aerial, many of the orchestrations were arranged by Michael Kamen, and he died in 2003. This was a long-gestating labor of love, appearing a mere 12 years after her last effort – by far her longest stretch between albums. Hell, save for Little Earthquakes, Tori Amos’ entire career has taken place between Kate Bush records.

What could possibly be worth that wait? Honestly, nothing, but damn if Aerial doesn’t come close. It’s an old-fashioned double record, 80 minutes long, and is nothing less than a magnificent paean to the utterly mundane. It’s an entire album about nothing happening, and then nothing continuing to happen, and how magical and wonderful that is. It celebrates washing machines and sunsets and street paintings, and does so with the most enchanting, ethereal music in Bush’s catalog.

Aerial is separated into two halves, and though some slight editing would have enabled all the material to fit on one disc, it screams to be on two. Most of the attention will be paid, and rightly so, to the second disc, A Sky of Honey – it is a seamless 42-minute suite chronicling an uneventful day, from afternoon to dawn. It’s all transcendent soundscapes and moods, and it’s fantastic, an ever-arcing crescendo that peaks with the title track, a thudding wonderland of joy. Along the way, Bush dabbles in flamenco on “Sunset” and lays down a deep groove on “Nocturn.”

Undoubtedly, the first disc, A Sea of Honey, consists of everything that didn’t fit in to the suite, but it’s remarkably cohesive on its own. It is, however, much loonier – if the Tori Amos allusions didn’t give the game away, let it be known that Kate Bush is a strange bird. (Literally, here – a recurring device on Aerial is her odd impression of a blackbird’s song.)

Hence, we get “Pi,” a song whose chorus is the mathematical concept of Pi calculated to 109 decimal places. We get “Mrs. Bartolozzi,” a piano-vocal number that eroticizes doing the laundry. We get odes to Elvis (“King of the Mountain”) and Joan of Arc (“Joanni”). And we get a beautiful song like “A Coral Room,” interrupted midway through for a children’s rhyme: “Little brown jug, don’t I love thee, ho ho ho, hee hee hee.”

Oddness abounds, but as usual, Bush makes everything work. More than work, she makes everything sparkle. “Pi” is absolutely stunning, a tale of mathematical obsession that somehow manages to make repeating numbers the most painfully beautiful thing you’ve ever heard. “Mrs. Bartolozzi” is breathtakingly poetic, and moving, especially when the tumbling clothes in the oft-mentioned washing machine bring the narrator back through her memories. “Bertie” is a song for her son that is simultaneously embarrassing and delightful. And both “King of the Mountain” and “How to Be Invisible” are this album’s version of rockers, and they are memorable and, in the case of “Invisible,” relentless.

The instrumentation is mostly synthesized soundscapes and percussion, with some excellent understated guitar here and here, but the focus is on Bush’s voice. And she uses all her tricks – melodies are trilled, high notes are belted out and then reined in, and vocal lines whoop and whorl every which way. Her voice is a natural wonder all its own. Bush could be a straight crooner if she wanted to, but she chooses a more idiosyncratic approach, and it’s unique and spectacular, as always. Hell, the title song contains a minute or so in which Bush does nothing but laugh. It is, like this whole record, strange and compelling.

What we have here is the spectacle of a most original artist marshalling all of her forces to capture and toast the ordinary. Aerial is panoramic, hugely expansive, and yet about very little. Many will find a 42-minute song about simple nothings boring, perhaps even interminable, but to these ears, it is enthralling, one of the best pieces of the year. In fact, in a year already full to bursting with masterpieces, Aerial stands tall, one of the most distinctive and successful records I have heard. It is beholden to no trends, it sounds out of time, and it bears no resemblance to anything else on the shelves.

In short, it is pure Kate Bush, in all of its baffling wonder. And it was well worth the wait.

* * * * *

Finest Hour

If Kate Bush was going for the longest sustained suite this year, she lost to Neal Morse by 14 minutes.

But then, Morse is known for this kind of thing. He wrote numerous long-form pieces as the guiding light behind both Spock’s Beard and Transatlantic, before he went and got religion. Morse’s third solo album is a single 56-minute piece called ? (yes, just the question mark), which all by itself should put some people off. I probably shouldn’t mention that it’s about the temple the Israelites of the Old Testament constructed to honor God, which here serves as Morse’s metaphor for spiritual renewal. That’ll really turn people away.

But guess what? It’s fantastic, easily the best thing Morse has done on his own, and maybe even better than his work with the Beard. Even Morse’s fans should be impressed with this one – he has effectively shaken up his classic prog formula while embracing it at the same time. The song is broken up into 12 tracks, but for no reason at all. It really is completely cohesive, a singular work that is never boring, and that rarely slips into the instrumental noodling that has often plagued his records.

For those who have heard Morse’s prior two God-bothering records, Testimony and One, this is a huge step forward. Morse puts away his tendency for sugary balladry, instead taking from Kansas and ‘70s rock more often than not. The strings are downplayed, and the horn section adds brassiness from time to time. The playing, by Morse, Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, and bassist Randy George, is amazing – tight, fluid, almost unbelievable in places. Best of all, Morse sounds alive and engaged in this one, a level of attention and energy that was missing from most of One.

Take “Solid as the Sun,” for example. The song is fabulous, a strutting rocker with a harmonized chorus and thick, chunky guitars. But Morse is not content with just that – he slips in a pure jazz break, and a scorching bass solo, and concludes it with a Kansas-esque refrain It’s just an awesome thing, musically speaking, and it’s typical of ?. The hour-long song concludes with a reprise of its opening theme, tying the whole thing together. As a complex equation solved for X, this is phenomenal, perhaps the most vibrant and successful piece Morse has given us.

I’m afraid the lyrics damage it once again, though. As he has ever since leaving the Beard, Morse presents his Christianity in the most basic of terms – the packaging even includes Bible verses for particular lines. His use of the tabernacle as a metaphor is interesting, and a step in the right direction, but it remains a few drafts away from insight. Some sections, like “Outside Looking In,” are certainly moving, and I don’t even mind the repeated “Temple of the Living God” theme, but when he starts listing the instances of the number 12 in the Bible, it just goes a bridge too far for me.

But let’s focus on the music, because musically, ? is pretty much perfect, a dynamic work from start to finish. I can deal with Morse’s newfound faith and his desire to express it, even in the simplest ways, if it accompanies prog-pop this well-constructed. As I said when I reviewed Testimony, time will hopefully deepen Morse’s understanding of his own beliefs, and bring a level of personal insight that his work, at current, sorely lacks. ? is a giant step towards that goal, and is also completely enjoyable on purely musical terms. A cohesive 56-minute song is a tough thing to wrestle to the ground, but Morse makes it look easy. Here’s hoping the next one is as lyrically incisive as it is musically complex.

* * * * *

Over and Out

Next week, I should play catch-up with some recent releases. Coming up through December are new ones from System of a Down, OutKast and Ryan Adams, and the usual assortment of live discs and remix projects that usually hit around Thanksgiving. Kate Bush represents, I believe, the last major record of the year, so the top 10 list is all but set in stone. But I say that every year, and something happens to surprise me. So you never know. You know?

See you in line Tuesday morning.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a column about Robbie Williams.

It was ostensibly a review of Escapology, his fifth album, but it turned into a thesis on the differences between international popularity and the American variety. I said that Williams will never be popular on this side of the Atlantic, despite achieving universal superstardom pretty much everywhere else. And I gave reasons, most notably his taste for campy humor and self-mockery. The general American public doesn’t quite get camp, I fear, and Escapology, like all of Williams’ efforts, was full of it.

I hate to say it, but I was right. Escapology flopped like a dying fish, and while I don’t usually care one way or another whether musicians attain widespread fame and fortune, in this case his sinking fortunes have affected my ability to hear his stuff. Williams just released his sixth album, Intensive Care, in seemingly every country on Earth except this one. In interviews, he’s come out and said that he’s given up on America, and it’s not worth even going to the bother of getting Intensive Care into stores over here.

It makes sense, unfortunately. And I can’t complain too much, because Williams and EMI set the new record’s price point so low that even the import doesn’t cost too much. But dammit, isn’t it enough that the rest of the world thinks of us as barbaric empire-builders who are so incompetent that we can’t take care of our own flooding cities? Now the European music machine is shunning us, too. The new Starsailor album, On the Outside, saw a similar non-U.S. release recently, and that import is way too costly for little old me. Damn you, general public!

It’s not as if America is missing a masterpiece in Intensive Care, but I like it, much more than I expected I would. Williams has been a polarizing figure for years now, mostly because of his fondness for ironic bragging – see “Handsome Man,” the best song on Escapology – and much of his scenery-chewing success has been credited to his partner in crime, Guy Chambers, who co-wrote all of Williams’ best songs. But that partnership dissolved shortly after Escapology was released, leaving questions about Williams’ ability to keep his streak alive on his own.

Not to worry. For Intensive Care, Robbie hooked up with Stephen Duffy, known for his collaborations with Barenaked Lady Steven Page. The result is a more (gasp) mature effort, a calmer and less obnoxious record than any he has made. The swagger is all but missing, save for the opening couplet, perhaps the funniest I’ve ever heard – over a Queen-like, anthemic piano, Williams sings, “Here I stand, victorious, the only man who made you come.” I nearly drove off the road.

But from there, the album is startlingly subdued. Opener “Ghosts” morphs from that slap of a first line into a sweet song about death and separation. “Make Me Pure” follows up its title phrase with “…but not yet,” but the song is hummable acoustic pop, not the brash rock you may expect. Williams steals a title from his idol Freddie Mercury for “Spread Your Wings,” which feels for a minute like it may follow the old trash-talking formula, but it turns more Mellencamp-esque, a hopeful slice of heartland rock.

I would never say that Robbie Williams is an artist worth following, even though I have followed him since his debut, but he and Duffy have made an attractive little pop album here, one that scales back the persona and focuses on the songs. Even when Williams gets randy, as on the ode to adultery “Your Gay Friend,” it’s charming this time out. If Escapology put you off, Intensive Care will welcome you back, and pour you a pint. It will even move you with closing track “King of Bloke and Bird,” the best ballad in Williams’ catalog. Far from the post-Chambers drop-off I expected, this may in fact be Williams’ most accomplished record. Too bad no one over here will hear it.

I have to mention the cover art, despite how hokey it is, because it was conceived by comics wonder-team Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. It’s a series of tarot-like designs, drawn by Quitely, with a campy Williams superimposed over them – far sillier than it sounds, and in fact far sillier than the album it is meant to represent. But hey, comic book guys getting work! Gotta support that.

* * * * *

And then there is Trey Anastasio.

Unlike Williams’ album, anyone who wants to can walk into any Best Buy in the country and pick up Anastasio’s Shine, his fourth solo effort. And I say “effort” in the most ironic sense possible – the former Phish leader has finally completed his long descent into mediocrity here, and while it’s been an interesting ride, I think I’m getting off at this stop.

For its last sputtering decade of life, Phish seemed to be aiming for musical anonymity. Hearing the band that wrote “The Divided Sky” and “Maze” limiting themselves to the likes of “Mexican Cousin” and “Crowd Control” was just depressing. It was almost like hearing Yes become an Eagles cover band. If you can play “Close to the Edge,” why would you hack out variations on “The Long Run”? Their frequent live albums were consistently fun, and their concerts reportedly never suffered, but on disc, Phish had been DOA for years before they called time of death.

And here, now, is proof that erstwhile leader Anastasio was the driving force steering the band into slumberland. Bassist Mike Gordon has made some fine records with Leo Kottke, and pianist Page McConnell’s Vida Blue side project showed his abilities in ways Phish hadn’t since Rift or so. But Shine is terrible, a collection of 12 small tunes that fail as pop and as instrumental showcases. It’s boring, the first thing Anastasio has ever done that I think anyone else could do.

Had producer Brendan O’Brien amassed a crack band of faceless studio pros to lay down the tracks here, the album wouldn’t have been any blander than it is with Trey playing, and that’s a damn shame. Anastasio is a gifted guitarist and a decent songwriter, when he’s trying, but on Shine his idiosyncrasies have been ironed out, his playing truncated, and even his voice smoothed and boosted.

O’Brien plays all the bass on this record, and acquits himself well, but let’s be fair – there is nothing here that your standard studio pro couldn’t have done. O’Brien, like all the musicians here, just gets out of the way, and the problem is there’s nothing actually taking up the space they’re vacating. The songs are just sad, especially from someone this talented. When Chad Kroger from Nickelback is routinely outdoing you as a composer, it’s time to reassess something.

I am being harsh, I know. Shine is a fine, fun, simplistic pop-rock record, and if all you want is the southern-fried riff-and-roll of something like “Air Said to Me,” then this will suit you. Personally, I can’t even get through something as boring as “Sweet Dreams Melinda” or “Spin” without reaching for the track skip button. The one song I enjoyed is “Wherever You Find It,” an ascending ballad with an extended coda and the sweetest solo on here, but even that one is predictable, something Trey Anastasio has rarely been. This is radio-ready, anonymous and spit-shined, and I hope it sells a lot of product for him, because that seems to be the main motivation.

I said earlier that I’m getting off this ride, but of course that’s a lie. Even if I weren’t a completist, I respect Anastasio’s talent too much to stop supporting his work. So here’s the thing – if Trey wants to keep making these piss-poor wastes of his time and skill, I’ll keep buying them anyway, and probably slating them here. But if, by some wonderful twist of fate, he decides to come back to making challenging, inspired music again, I’ll be here waiting for him.

* * * * *

I just rated Robbie Williams higher than Trey Anastasio. I’m not sure if that’s a sign of the apocalypse, but I think I’ll take the day off and hang out in my bomb shelter, just in case.

Next week, the long-awaited return of Kate Bush. Plus, Neal Morse writes a 56-minute song about God. Oh, joy. (It’s actually really good.)

See you in line Tuesday morning.