“I have yet to find a way to describe what Joanna Newsom does and make it sound appealing.”

That’s my friend Michael Ferrier talking, and sadly, I agree. I’ve come up with a dozen different ways to explain her music – it’s epic harp-prog-folk with chirpy vocals, for example – but I’ve never found one that makes people say, “Yeah, I want to hear that.”

In fact, even playing Joanna Newsom songs for people often has a detrimental effect. When I named her second album, Ys, the best record of 2006, many just shook their heads in confusion. Many more thought I was kidding, pulling a large-scale prank on my friends and readers. Ten-minute songs, harp and strings, that childlike voice – most people I know just couldn’t wrap their heads around it, which I totally understand.

So for them, sitting third-row-center in Chicago’s Symphony Hall for two and a half hours as Newsom plays most of her ouvre might seem like torture. But to me, it was a magical Friday night. For the first half, Newsom, looking absolutely radiant, played all of Ys in order, backed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The shortest song on this album is seven minutes, and the longest is 18, but that hour just flew by. It was almost sensory overload, trying to watch Newsom deftly pluck her harp while catching drummer Neal Morgan rearranging his kit to add subtle shadings, and taking in the whole orchestra all at once too. It was amazing.

For the second half, Newsom returned with just her three-piece Ys Street Band – Morgan, violinist Lila Sklar and guitar/banjo/tambura player Ryan Francesconi. They played almost all of The Milk-Eyed Mender, Newsom’s 2004 debut. The quartet harmonized beautifully, adding so much to the old songs – “Bridges and Balloons” was particularly beautiful, and “The Book of Right-On” took on a sinister edge. They slammed through “Colleen,” the new song included on last year’s live EP, and I think that was my favorite of the set. But it’s hard to choose.

Newsom also played a selection of new songs, and they were all old-time folk numbers. I suspect, in reaction to the massive Ys, she’s planning her third album as a small, simple set, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she used her touring band in the studio. The new tunes were very old Americana, and while I don’t know the names of any of them, I was especially thrilled with the final encore, a sweet, direct love song.

I learned, watching her play, that Newsom is in complete control of that high, idiosyncratic voice – what sounds random and surprising on record comes off as meticulously arranged live, her mouth contorting to get different sounds out at exact times, and she’s really learned to use her voice as an instrument in the years since Mender. I also learned that playing the harp is hard – Newsom’s hands were flying at all times, and it looked like a pretty good cardio workout.

The show was magical, and I’m very glad I got to see it. Thanks to Mike and Joyce for coming with me – seeing something this wonderfully odd is always better when you’re with people who get it too. I’m excited for Newsom’s third, and for the opportunity to play her bizarre, beautiful work for more people, despite the head-scratches and quizzical looks I’ll no doubt get.

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It seems like every week now, there’s something new to download. New singles from bands like Coldplay and Keane, whole albums from Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead – it seems like the movement is growing daily, with more and more bands getting into the act.

The latest is Bloc Party. The cleverly-named British quartet released their third album, Intimacy, online last week for a cool ten bucks. (If, like me, you enjoy packaging and want the hard copy, that’s 20 bucks, and you have to wait until October. But the download is included, and you get that now.) If nothing else, this plays up the immediacy of the web – according to band members, Intimacy was finished about two weeks ago. Most revenue-eating leaks take place in that four-to-six-month lead time the record companies need to set up packaging, marketing and distribution, so releasing something online days after it’s finished heads that off at the pass, too. Hard to leak something if you don’t know it exists.

Oddly enough, though, Intimacy feels like an online-only release, a transitional experiment on the way to a real third album. Maybe it’s just my bias towards tangible context coming out, but these 10 songs don’t hang together as an album to me, and taken all at once, they depict a band still searching for a new direction, instead of a band confidently striding off in one.

About half of this album sounds like Bloc Party. The jittery rock explosions of Silent Alarm are here (“Halo,” “One Month Off”), as well as the expansive ambient balladry of A Weekend in the City (“Biko,” “Ion Square”). The other half, though, brings in a new big beat influence, and concentrates on electronic texture rather than melody. Opener “Ares” sounds like Run-DMC (really) before sliding into a spectral middle eight, and “Mercury” may as well be its own dance remix, singer Kele Okereke repeating “My Mercury’s in retrograde” over a thumping beat until you want to smack him.

Some experiments work better, though. “Signs” is lovely, opening with chimes right out of Peter Gabriel’s “San Jacinto” and building up to a trance-like synthesizer cloudwalk. “Zepherus” is even better, floating on what sounds like a full choir (hard to tell without liner notes), electronic beats skating in and out – it’s like a lost Bjork production.

Still and all, there aren’t a lot of captivating songs here, and the emotional heft of Weekend is all but missing. Perhaps the most memorable thing here is “Biko,” which is not the famous Peter Gabriel song, but another one (seemingly) about the anti-apartheid activist. Over glorious atmospheric guitar and a skittering beat, Okereke sings, “Biko, toughen up, I need you to be strong for us.” Of all 10 songs here, this is the only one that has stayed with me for longer than a few minutes.

In the same way that digital distribution is still feeling its way around, trying to choose one of the 20,000 forms it could take, Bloc Party is trying to decide what kind of band it will turn into next. Intimacy is the sound of the chrysalis slowly pushing open – it’s not fully formed, but you can see the shape of the wings, and feel its desire to fly. The fourth album is going to be fascinating, but for now, Intimacy is just a rest stop on the way there.

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I can count the number of Matthew Sweet songs I don’t like without running out of fingers. Considering he’s made 10 albums and an EP over 22 years, that’s a very good average.

Unfortunately, about half of those lousy songs can be found on Living Things, Sweet’s last album, released in 2004. A gloopy, pseudo-psychedelic, melodically-challenged mess, Living Things dimmed my hope for Sweet’s post-label career, and the fact that he’s only surfaced for a light, breezy covers album with Susannah Hoffs since then has done little to change that impression.

Sweet didn’t necessarily need to return to form – some people liked Living Things, and it was a minor speed bump in an otherwise exemplary pop career for me. But he has anyway with Sunshine Lies, his 10th album, which takes all the psychedelic touches of his last few records and marries them to a) terrific songs, and b) loud, crunchy guitars.

Lies most resembles 1999’s In Reverse, which is a good thing for me – I think that’s Sweet’s best album. Sunshine Lies isn’t quite as good, but amidst the looping backwards guitar noise and the oceans of often random-sounding backing vocals are some excellent songs. “Time Machine,” the opener, is a bit sing-songy, but the album really picks up with “Room to Rock,” with its stomping, dirty-ass riff.

The album goes back and forth like that for most of its running time, alternating gentle moments with rock and roll gems. “Byrdgirl” lives up to its name, with its ringing Roger McGuinn guitar sound and soaring melody, and it’s followed immediately by “Flying,” which pushes Sweet’s “rawk” voice to its limits. The louder songs benefit most from the trademark Sweet production – feedback and noise are accentuated, lead guitars toppling over one another in a seemingly haphazard fashion.

That said, my favorites here are the softer numbers. The title track, featuring Hoffs on backing vocals, sports one of Sweet’s more indelible tunes, and “Pleasure is Mine” is a delightful little song without, it seems, a trace of irony. The album ends with “Back of My Mind,” an epic ballad that will keep on playing in your head after its 5:07 has run out.

Sweet made a huge splash in the ‘90s with a simple (and simply great) little record called Girlfriend. He’s never captured the public’s attention in quite the same way since, and that’s the public’s loss. Sweet’s catalog is overflowing with masterful pop songs, and Sunshine Lies fits right in. It’s another splendid Matthew Sweet record, and it’s been too damn long since we’ve had one of those.

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It’s been a while since I enjoyed a Levellers album.

Their golden age, for me, started with 1991’s awesome Levelling the Land and ended with 2000’s studio masterpiece, Hello Pig. Those five albums (excluding the disappointing self-titled effort from 1993) firmly established their punk-pop-rock-with-a-fiddle sound, and then obliterated it, ending up in a psychedelic ‘60s pop place that suited them brilliantly. Since then, Levellers albums have been restrained affairs, hearkening back to Levelling without capturing that fire.

It turns out, all they needed was to get really, really angry. That’s the secret behind Letters From the Underground, the best and most incendiary Levs record this decade. The album is a 36-minute double-barrel barrage, loud and pissed and spitting vinegar, and the band sounds revitalized, as if they’ve awoken from a coma. Staying with that image, it’s almost as if the band woke up, took a look around, found the world had gone to shit, and immediately vomited up these 11 songs.

You can hear the change right away. “The Cholera Well” will knock you over if you’re not careful, Jon Sevink’s blistering fiddle kicking things off before the thunderous guitars crash in. The song is a two-and-a-half-minute scathing indictment of U.S. and U.K. foreign policies, and the genocides and terrorist acts that grow out of them. “By night the U.S. planes descend, deals are struck with payroll friends, an arms bazaar that never ends, and the Russians land by morning,” spits Mark Chadwick over the most awesome musical firescape the band has laid down in years.

The tone remains constant, even when the music slows down. “Burn America Burn,” the first single, takes aim at school shootings, calling them a symptom of America’s disease. (You know the song isn’t going to be subtle when it starts with, “There’s a shooter in the school, keep your fucking heads down…”) The devastating “Behold a Pale Rider” (the album’s epic at 4:50) references the London bombings and ties them to the war for oil, culminating in a long look in the mirror: “And millions cried sweet Mary, a million more cried tears of shame, when they saw what they had done in the name of all their hopes and fears, when they realized what they’d became…”

The band’s hearts are with the soldiers and the searchers throughout this album. “Heart of the Country” is about looking for the titular core of one’s homeland, and only finding “restricted zones,” while closer “Fight or Flight” depicts a man pushed to the brink: “Can you help me, ‘cause I need to understand the truth behind the plan…” Even the album’s one love song, “Before the End,” is relentlessly dark, lamenting the “one kiss to build a dream upon.”

But if I’ve made it sound like this album is no fun, I’m telling it wrong. Letters is a bullet – it’s over before you know it, a flurry of drums, guitars and fiddles burning up the sky. The songs are all tight, and none is longer than it needs to be – it’s the closest the Levs have come to a punk album in years, maybe ever. And while the wonderful pop sound they discovered in the late ‘90s is absent, for the first time, I don’t miss it – this is a perfect mission statement for the Levellers, an important dose of social criticism wrapped up in some of the most fiery music they’ve ever made.

It’s been a while since I enjoyed a Levellers album, but with Letters From the Underground, they’ve stormed the hill and held it. It’s their best record in nearly a decade. Try it here.

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We begin and end with Mike Ferrier, who originally got me into Girlyman. Mike saw the golden-voiced trio open for the Indigo Girls, and loved them straight away. He bought me their debut album, Remember Who I Am, and I liked it quite a bit. But subsequent albums sounded much too similar to me, and I never even got around to reviewing Joyful Sign, their third effort. I admit I’ve never really heard what Mike heard in them, and I was about ready to give up trying.

And then, they went and wowed me. Somewhere Different Now, the trio’s first live album, is in many ways the only Girlyman album you’ll ever need. (That’s a compliment, but I doubt the band will take it as such.) At 29 tracks and 77 minutes, it looks exhausting on paper, but it’s a joyous breeze, an old-time hootenanny.

About half of those 29 tracks are snippets of between-song banter and Nate Borofsky’s infamous tuning songs – little ditties he makes up while his bandmates Ty Greenstein and Doris Muramatsu tune up their guitars. And they make the album. The bit about cannons in pop songs is priceless, the running gag about “Hava Nagila” is a riot, and the spontaneous “Let’s Go to Church” is hilarious. Girlyman concerts are, clearly, just a chance for these three friends to hang out on stage together, and the atmosphere is loose and light.

And then there is the music, which for some reason sounds so much better on stage than in the sterile confines of the studio. The Girlyman secret is, of course, the three voices, intertwining and dancing together, and live, they play off of each other, not just harmonizing (which they do beautifully) but flying around each other, arcing skyward with unrestrained joy. I’ve rarely heard three voices that belong together more than these – Nate, Ty and Doris are all good singers on their own, but together, their voices are impossibly beautiful. They’re like Voltron – the lions are formidable on their own, but when they combine to form the giant robot, they are unstoppable.

Girlyman songs are generally simple and understated, focusing on the voices. “This is Me,” early on, sets the tone – strummed guitars, harmonies, autobiographical observations. They just work better live for some reason. Songs that didn’t grab me on the records, like “Storms Were Mine” and “Say Goodbye,” are captivating on this collection. That humor is everywhere, though – halfway through “Hey Rose” they slip into Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle” without warning, and the audience reaction is hysterical.

As expected, there are some covers here, but they’re fascinating choices, making a case for AM radio. Here is “All Through the Night,” a Jules Shear song popularized by Cyndi Lauper, and it’s lovely. Here as well is “Angel of the Morning” – yes, that one, written by Chip Taylor and sung by Juice Newton. And here is “Son of a Preacher Man,” the Dusty Springfield classic, used here as the punchline to the “Let’s Go to Church” gag. But the version here is a serious homage, and a terrific one.

And nestled at track 23 is the title song, a Ty Greenstein piece that has never appeared on a studio album. It may be the most beautiful Girlyman song I have heard, a simple coming-of-age ballad with some incredible harmonies. I’m not sure why this song has grabbed me so much, but it’s taken up residence in my head, and it won’t leave. For this song alone, I’m glad I didn’t give up on Girlyman.

If you’ve never tried Girlyman before, this is the one to get. Somewhere Different Now proves that Girlyman is a live act more than a studio one, and that I misjudged them just from their recorded output. There are more sides to this band than I suspected, and they’ve got me for at least the next couple of records. Meanwhile, you can buy this one here.

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Next week, Brian Wilson. I’m equal parts excited and terrified for this one.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’ve just heard about LeRoi Moore’s death.

I first became aware of the Dave Matthews Band in 1994, a few weeks after the release of their breakthrough album, Under the Table and Dreaming. I was browsing in a record store (which is pretty much where I am when I’m not working) and I started feeling this nudge. There’s a part of my brain that is always attuned to what music is playing, wherever I am, and that part sometimes has to smack the rest of my brain to get it to listen.

I remember it was “Jimi Thing” that finally grabbed my attention. Now, you have to remember, in 1994, no one had ever heard a sound like the one the Dave Matthews Band concocted. Acoustic guitar, bass, violin, saxophone and drums? In the age of Nirvana, what the hell kind of band was that? But it worked. It was part jazz, part folk, part jam band, and all awesome.

This was months before Under the Table and Dreaming exploded all over the scene, turning the South African folkie and his band of jazzheads into unlikely superstars. It was actually permissible, in those days, to write about the Dave Matthews Band and just concentrate on the music, and the music was always good. I like the first three studio albums a lot, but best of all, I think, is 1998’s Before These Crowded Streets. It’s the one studio record that really captures how aggressive the band could be live – just about every song evolves into an extended jam, arcing higher and higher as it goes.

And there, in the thick of things, was Moore, wailing away on his array of saxophones. He was a hell of a player, even in the studio, but you had to hear him live to really get it. In fact, the whole band shone on stage, a five-piece that moved and thought as one. I know it’s not fashionable to praise the Dave Matthews Band, but if you can listen to just one of their many live albums all the way through and not agree that they’re great musicians, I don’t know what to tell you.

LeRoi Moore was in an ATV accident in June, during which he punctured a lung and broke a few ribs. He was released from the hospital days later, but readmitted in July for related reasons that remain unclear. On Tuesday, he died from his injuries, at the young age of 46. I’m glad I got to see him live, but I’m sad the original Dave Matthews Band will never play another gig, or make another record. Rest in peace, LeRoi. You’ll be missed.

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This week I got to talk to D.L. Hughley.

Aw, who am I kidding? It was the undisputed highlight of my week so far. I GOT TO TALK TO D.L. HUGHLEY! Very nice guy, and he was absolutely up for what I hoped he’d be: a philosophical discussion on the state of modern comedy, and the art form he’s dedicated his life to. It was a good conversation, and he gave me innumerable great quotes. Plus, he called me from a golf course in Los Angeles, which I thought was kind of awesome.

So we started talking about Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Aaron Sorkin’s latest show. Hughley played Simon Stiles, one of the stars of the show-within-a-show, and a bracing advocate of racial equality in comedy. It was a very good performance, but come to find out Hughley wasn’t thrilled with the writing on the program. He called the show “highbrow to the point of being exclusionary,” and we joked about needing to reference Wikipedia just to get all the jokes.

That got me thinking. I loved Studio 60, but Hughley’s right – occasionally the show just got too clever for its own good, which minimized its audience. Still, I’d never argue that anything should be dumbed down to suit the people watching it, or listening to it. I wondered, though – is there a point where complexity just translates into being difficult for its own sake? Sure, you’re impressing yourself, but who else is listening? And does it matter?

Take the Fiery Furnaces, for instance. The siblings Friedberger (singer Eleanor and mad genius Matthew) started out as a likable garage-blues band, but quickly transformed into this insane, schizophrenic, junk-prog outfit. Ten-minute songs, ever-changing sonic landscapes, songs with no melodies, songs with 500 melodies, songs that retain that punk-ish minimalism while being frigging impossible to play. Plus, they’re astonishingly prolific – they’ve turned out six studio records since 2003, and Matthew Friedberger found time to produce a double-disc solo album in there too.

I’ve been along for the ride, for the most part. I’m one of the few critics who thought Rehearsing My Choir, the 2005 album the Friedbergers made with their grandmother, was riveting. But lately, it’s started to sound a bit samey to me – listening to last year’s Widow City, I actually kind of longed for the simple bluesy stretches of their early stuff. But the further you tunnel up your own ass, the harder it is to back out again.

Case in point – here is Remember, the first Furnaces live album, and the most insane thing they’ve ever released. It is 130 minutes long, contains 51 tracks, and will give you a headache pretty quickly. There’s actually a warning on the back of the case: “Please do not attempt to listen to all at once.” I laughed at first, but they’re right – this is sensory overload, too much crazy to take in one big chunk.

I’ve actually been waiting for a Furnaces live album, since their concerts are legendary. Using a shifting lineup, the Furnaces go to great lengths to make sure no one show is the same as any other. While some bands will use their recorded versions as a jumping-off point, the Furnaces almost entirely disregard them. They rearrange the songs completely, often stripping them of anything recognizable. I’m not sure how they do it and keep it all straight on stage, so I was eager to hear a live document.

Remember is a live album the way Frank Zappa’s live albums were. Matthew Friedberger took four tours’ worth of live tapes and spliced them together, apparently at random. You’ll get 40 seconds of one song, then it will abruptly cut to two minutes of another, and so on. It gets worse – the four tours were not recorded at the same quality, so the splices are obvious. Eleanor will be singing with crystal clarity one moment, then sound like she’s in a cave five miles away the next. It’s jarring.

Even more ridiculous is the decision to splice together bits from the same song. I know, Zappa used to do this too, but you couldn’t really tell unless you were listening for it. Opener “Blueberry Boat” is about eight minutes long here – a little shorter than its studio counterpart – but it consists of the same bits of song repeated, played by different Furnaces lineups in different venues. Eleanor takes solace in her blueberry cargo four or five times here, and you’ll think your CD skipped backwards.

I have listened to all of Remember, and I don’t really understand what it’s trying to do. Sure, it’s complex, and there are nifty sections – there’s a great version of “Teach Me Sweetheart” on disc one, and a medley of songs from Choir on disc two that works well – but as a whole, it’s a bloody mess. Inaccessible isn’t even the word – Remember is impenetrable, and while I admire the musicianship and the time it must have taken to edit this thing together, I doubt I’m going to listen to it very often.

So where is the line? Where did the Furnaces finally lose me, on their journey towards unlistenable complexity? Can something be dazzlingly complicated and still musically moving?

Of course it can. Let me present the best example I’ve heard this year: Flight of the Knife, by Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears. Right now, you are likely asking, “Who the fuck?” It took me a minute to get past the name, too – Bryan Scary immediately made me think of Richard Scarry, and the Shredding Tears? Um, what? But when the music is this good, who cares what the band is called?

Flight of the Knife sounds to me like Zappa joining Wings. The album is full of these incredible, memorable, melodic pop songs, like Jellyfish-quality pop songs. But it’s also astonishingly technical, complex music – time and tempo changes, musical reversals, moments where the band whips the rug out from under you. The opening title track is an epic piece, the longest thing here at 5:38, but amidst the Zappa-isms (the quick, random fills, the crazy tempos) are enough glorious melodies to fill three songs.

“Venus Ambassador” is even better. It starts with a piano-vocal overture, like something floating out of a cartoon sky. The song proper is a Paul McCartney special, with a melody line that never quits. The falsetto section over the arpeggiated piano and whirling bass, the shuffling chorus, the “ay-ay-ay” harmonies – it’s just fantastic. And then! It explodes into a barrelhouse two-step, pianos pounding, and finally disintegrates. All this in 4:21.

I could talk about each song this way, so brilliant is the writing on each of them. I think my favorite is “Imitation of the Sky” – if the Ben Folds Five who made their first album learned everything they knew from Electric Light Orchestra, it might sound like this. “The Curious Disappearance of the Sky-Ship Thunder-Man” is an incredible title for a very 1970s prog-rock-meets-Elton-John wonder. And “Mama Waits” is the coolest two-minute pop song you’re likely to hear in 2008, its creeping “ooh-ooh” opening finally morphing into a killer chorus.

See, I’m doing it – I’m talking about every song, because they’re all so damn good. This album is a perfect example of harnessing jaw-dropping musical talent in service of a set of delightful songs. There’s more than a little Freddie Mercury here (“Heaven on a Bird” especially), tons of McCartney, and oodles of pop songwriting genius. Flight of the Knife not only proves that complexity doesn’t have to be a bad thing, it stands as one of the finest albums of the year, easy.

You can hear some of the best Knife songs here. “Imitation of the Sky” is a must.

I might not have heard of Bryan Scary at all without Dr. Tony Shore, who is constantly recommending wonderful records to me. Check out his blog – he’s trying to review an album a day lately, and as someone who knows how hard a daily deadline can be, I know he needs all the encouragement he can get. Thanks, Doc!

That’s it for this week – I’m going to see Joanna Newsom with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Friday, and friends I haven’t seen in months are flying in for the occasion, so I need to wrap this up. Next week, Matthew Sweet, and probably a few others.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

In high school, I knew as little about good music as I did about life.

The real music nuts in my high school were miles ahead of me. They were listening to R.E.M., the Violent Femmes and Public Image Ltd. while I was obsessing over Warrant and Slaughter. I went from a contemporary Christian phase right into a metalhead phase, passing over the good stuff in the process. My record collection at the time included Carman and Ride the Lightning, and little between those two extremes.

And by the time I was a sophomore in high school, if you had long hair and could shred on a guitar, I probably owned your tape. Trixter. Tora Tora. Badlands. Kik Tracee. Britny Fox. Dangerous Toys. Band after terrible band found its way into my plastic cassette-carrying case, and virtually none of them have survived the switch-over to CDs. Here’s another one: Steelheart. Who the hell are Steelheart and why did I listen to them? I have no idea.

The change in formats has really shown me the nuggets of corn floating in that ocean of shit. I would never buy Hurricane’s old albums in pristine digital editions, but I have snapped up CD copies of the bands that, to me, stood out. And one of them was Boston’s Extreme, one of the most ambitious and talented acts of the hair metal era.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “More Than Words,” right? It’s the only Extreme song most people know, a wimpy acoustic ballad that sounds like the Everly Brothers with a bad hangover. It’s not that awful, but it took me years before I could play it and enjoy it again, so thoroughly did it infect the airwaves in 1991 and 1992. Things you should know: “More Than Words” was an anomaly on an otherwise pretty heavy record (1990’s Pornografitti), and to the band’s credit, they never wrote another one like it.

Extreme started out as a funky metal band, writing little ditties about cannibalism and pedophilia. In Gary Cherone, they had a strong vocalist with a flair for off-the-beaten-path lyrics, especially in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. And in Nuno Bettencourt, they had a guitar player who would make Eddie Van Halen weep. I’m not one for flashy playing much anymore, but when I was, man, they didn’t come flashier than Bettencourt. Blistering solos, syncopated riffs, just an all-around mastery of pop-metal guitar heroics, and to top it off, he could play piano too. His versatility blew my 16-year-old mind.

Earlier, I called Extreme one of the most ambitious bands of the era, and no album exemplifies that more than 1992’s III Sides to Every Story. It’s just about 80 minutes long, divided into three sections – a heavy, funky powerhouse of an opening act, followed by a clever, mainly acoustic middle eight, and a grand finale. The last section is called “Everything Under the Sun,” and it’s a 20-minute epic performed with an 80-piece orchestra, arranged by Bettencourt. It’s amazing, still.

Naturally, with Saint Cobain’s Flannel Army routing all competition on the airwaves at that time, III Sides flopped. Extreme made one more album, 1995’s live-in-the-studio Waiting for the Punchline, then broke up. Cherone joined Van Halen for a disastrous album and tour, then formed Tribe of Judah. Bettencourt made a solo album, then recorded with three other bands, mostly flirting with a dark industrial sound. And famously, he was the holdout on VH1’s Bands Reunited, the one who wouldn’t agree to get the band back together.

Yes, I know a little too much about Extreme, but I liked them a lot, and still admire their records. Which is why the news that after 13 years, Bettencourt had at last agreed to make another Extreme album filled me with giddy joy. I can’t explain it. Extreme were silly and often laughable, but they also helped a 16-year-old kid see beyond hair metal to other types of music, so they have a special place in my heart. And also, III Sides is still an amazing piece of work.

I can’t say I knew what to expect from Saudades de Rock, the reunion album. But you know what? It’s great, probably Extreme’s second-best record. The title is Portuguese, and loosely translated means “a nostalgic yearning for rock.” Dumb title, I agree. But the record lives up – this is a ROCK RECORD, loud and tight and melodic, with virtually none of the sugary pop-metal of the band’s past. Seriously, just give a listen to “Comfortably Dumb,” the second track. It’s like Audioslave, if they were awesome.

Bettencourt, bless his long-haired heart, hasn’t lost a note – he still plays these lightning-fast solos that easily type him as a child of the ‘80s. But he also brings his trademark versatility to bear on Saudades. Sure, “Star” and “Comfortably Dumb” are pretty typical riff-rockers, but “Take Us Alive” is almost a hillbilly shuffle, and “Last Hour” is what critics in the ‘80s used to call “power blues.” “Learn to Love” combines a whip-smart metal riff with a southern rock chorus, then segues into a tight, technical, almost progressive middle section. Check out new drummer Kevin Figueiredo – Extreme has had more drummers than Spinal Tap, but they’ve found a good one here.

There is no “More Than Words” on this record, either, thank God. The closest is “Interface,” a mid-tempo love song with those Cherone-Bettencourt harmonies, but it isn’t drippy. The closing song, “Peace,” nearly steps over the line into goopy sentiment, but a long, joyous coda rescues it. Best of the slower songs is “Ghost,” which starts as a piano ballad but evolves into a U2-style minor-key anthem.

I would never suggest that Saudades de Rock is one of the best albums of the year, but I quite like it. As a reunion album for one of 16-year-old me’s favorite bands, it exceeds all of my expectations. As much as I like more “serious” music, bands and albums championed by the likes of Pitchfork, some part of me has a nostalgic yearning for rock too, and this album does it for me. It’s more than just a rock record, though – Saudades de Rock ably shows just how versatile and ambitious Extreme were in their day, and apparently still are.

* * * * *

I was hoping to review the Levellers, another band I loved in high school, but as of yet, their new album Letters From the Underground hasn’t hit my mailbox. (The perils of still buying physical CDs, I guess…) So instead, I’ll talk about something else I loved during my younger years.

I’m still plowing through my Doctor Who DVDs, but in addition to watching the last few Doctors chronologically, I am picking up the new classic series releases as they come out, and slotting those into my viewing pattern. I’ve kind of put off diving into Colin Baker’s tenure as the Doctor until his final batch of stories, under the heading The Trial of a Time Lord, hits stores in October. So it’s Doctors one through five for me for a while.

Luckily, DVDs are coming out at an amazing rate these days. We’re on pace to have 13 classic stories released this year, not counting the modern series stuff, and I’ve been frantically trying to catch up with the flurry of Time Lord goodness. Back in June, the Beneath the Surface box set… well, surfaced, and I’ve finally made my way through all three stories in this collection. Two of them star Jon Pertwee, the third Doctor, and the other features my Doctor, the fifth, Peter Davison.

These three stories are linked by their villains, the Silurians and the Sea Devils. They are two species of prehistoric reptiles that once ruled the world, and they’ve come out of hibernation to discover that the apes have evolved into these two-legged resource hogs, running rampant over the planet they still consider their home. The Silurians live in caves, the Sea Devils in underwater caverns, but their motivation is the same.

And it’s a neat one. As early as Jon Pertwee’s second story as the Doctor, the production team was finding new ways to do alien invasion stories – Pertwee’s Doc, you’ll remember, was exiled to Earth by the Time Lords, leaving the writers very few Who-ish story types to choose from.

That second story is called Doctor Who and the Silurians, though not really – that was a mistake the credits producer made, appending the series title to the real name of the story, The Silurians. It’s a seven-parter, a hallmark of Pertwee’s first season, and as such it’s a slow build. It starts in a nuclear power station, one that has been experiencing strange power drains. The Doctor and UNIT are called in when a pair of scientists explores the caves under the station, and encounters… something.

Over two long episodes, the Doc picks up clues, then heads into the caves himself, meeting a cheap plastic reptile… I mean, a fearsome monster. After that, the story picks up steam – the opening episodes are painfully slow, but important, and the buildup is masterful. By the end, the Doc has met the Silurians, and discovered their claim to the Earth, and he tries to broker peace between them and the humans, who are itching to drive what they see as invaders from their lands. Things boil over when a rogue Silurian infects a human prisoner with a deadly virus, and releases him back to the surface.

Overall, this is a successful story, although it’s marred by the squonking music. Pertwee’s on form, Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier is typically excellent, and Caroline John proves that her Liz Shaw should have remained as a companion after the seventh season. Director Timothy Combe wisely keeps the cheap rubber Silurian costume out of view for four whole episodes, as the story suffers once the screen is crawling with the buggers. It’s seven parts, meaning almost three hours long, but it deserves it, and the final shot, as the Doctor watches the Brigadier blow up the Silurian caves, is devastating.

Initially, there doesn’t seem to be much connection between The Silurians and the season nine story, The Sea Devils. For three of its six episodes, in fact, the story could have been titled The Master (And Also Some Sea Devils). This tale is a showcase for Roger Delgado, the first and best Master – you’ll remember, he’s the renegade Time Lord who plays Moriarty to the Doctor’s Holmes. At the start of the story, the Master’s been locked up in an island prison, but of course, not for long…

The Doctor and Jo Grant, his bubble-headed assistant of the time, sail out to see the Master, and to investigate a series of attacks on ships near there. Slowly, we learn that the Master has taken over his prison, playing the warden like a piano, and has plans to contact the Sea Devils, the prehistoric race of amphibians that has been attacking those ships.

It takes a long time, but we finally learn that the Sea Devils are cousins of the Silurians, and want the same thing – they feel they have a legitimate claim to the Earth, and the Doctor agrees. The British military, on the other hand, doesn’t, and treats the Sea Devil attacks as an act of war. Of course, just as the Doc is brokering a peace treaty, the military attacks, blowing up the Sea Devils’ underwater base. Mayhem ensues from there.

Yes, it’s essentially the same story again, and yes, both The Silurians and The Sea Devils came from the pen of the same writer, Malcolm Hulke. But this one is better, by far. For one thing, there’s Delgado, slippery and stylish as ever, stealing every scene he’s in. For another, the production team lavished a ton of money on this story, gaining the cooperation of the Royal Navy and using real military equipment and soldiers. The battle sequences in episode six are among the best Doctor Who ever put on screen, and while the story has a similar ending – the Sea Devils’ invasion is routed, with much loss of life – it benefits greatly from the telling of it this time.

So the stage is set, then, for the two prehistoric races to combine their forces and engage humanity in one last, fantastic battle for the planet. Right? Um, right?

Yeah, there are many words to describe Warriors of the Deep, the premiere of the show’s 21st season, but “fantastic” isn’t one of them. On paper, it’s exactly what you’d hope it would be – the Silurians and the Sea Devils team up to attack an underwater base on future Earth, the first step towards wiping out the humans and taking back the world. The plan, actually, is a good one – they will use this underwater base to launch nuclear missiles, igniting another world war, and then rise from the depths when humanity has finished obliterating itself.

Of course, the Doctor, here played with trademark energy and wit by the great Peter Davison, gets caught in the middle, and tries valiantly to save the day. As this is the final season of Davison’s run, however, things go badly, and by the end, both prehistoric races lie dead, victims of the humans’ last resort weapon against them. The story should have been an emotional buildup to the towering last line – “There should have been another way,” delivered with great feeling by Davison. It should have been a triumph.

Sadly, this is yet another of those stories for which nothing, absolutely nothing, went right. The seabase sets are well-built, but astonishingly overlit. The Silurian and Sea Devil costumes have been redesigned, and somehow look cheaper than their 1970s counterparts. The entire guest cast has the acting chops of a block of wood. The script is painful – writer Johnny Byrne often had great ideas regarding character motivation and back story, but they never translated to the page, and hence never made it to screen.

And then there is the Myrka. It’s supposed to be this gigantic reptilian beast, a last-resort secret weapon, a terrifying monster from the depths. In reality, it’s two guys playing pantomime horse under this green latex and rubber thing, with a googly-eyed head and ineffectual little arms. It’s unintentionally hilarious, and because the set is so overlit, we get to see it in all its glory. It’s amazingly bad. You hear a lot about the cheapness (or, as Frank Zappa would say, cheepnis) of ‘80s Who, and it doesn’t come cheaper than the Myrka.

At least, I hope not.

And then there is the bit where Ingrid Pitt’s character tries to stop the Myrka with awful martial arts moves. I can’t even describe this scene, it’s so godawful. Warriors nearly pulls it out in the fourth episode, which actually lets the prehistoric reptiles give their side of the story, but by then it’s too late. At only four episodes, Warriors of the Deep is at least an hour too long, and sitting through it is sheer agony punctuated by moments of hysterical laughter.

Taken as a trilogy, Beneath the Surface starts strong, gets stronger, and then sticks the landing. You’ll enjoy the slow burn of The Silurians, cheer the great performances and storytelling in The Sea Devils, and then want to throw Warriors in a landfill. It’s an intriguing reversal of the alien invasion story, all told, but I wish the ‘80s team had let it lie. As Davison’s Doc said, there should have been another way.

One last note – I took my Doctor Who fandom to a new level this month by obtaining all the Loose Cannon reconstructions. There are 108 episodes missing from the BBC archives, the tapes wiped simply because television was more ephemeral in those days. But off-air audio recordings exist, and photographs from the set, so we have an idea how these stories may have looked and sounded. Well, there’s this crazy group of fans called Loose Cannon who have taken it upon themselves to reconstruct the episodes, using every available tool.

And trust me, these things are awesome. Far from being boring slideshows, the Loose Cannon recons are fascinating glimpses at episodes I never thought I’d see. I’ve watched Marco Polo, the fourth-ever Doctor Who story, and even though my copy’s audio is very soft, the recon is amazing. (The story, as well, is fantastic.) And I’ve seen Galaxy 4, a William Hartnell story with a lousy reputation. It’s not bad as a story, and the recon is unbelievable – for this one, the Loose Cannon team built props (including the robot baddies) and shot new scenes. It’s a wonderful labor of love, and I’m grateful for all their work.

Loose Cannon recons are free, and only available on VHS – otherwise, the BBC would probably crack down on them. I wouldn’t recommend these to any but the hardest of hardcore fans, and I suppose having written that, I now number myself among them. I’m not thinking about it, though. I’m off to watch Mission to the Unknown, lovingly reconstructed for my viewing pleasure.

Next week, some of the most complex pop you’ll ever hear.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

It’s just a fact of my personality that I’m constantly finding myself excited for new albums without hearing a note of them. If an artist I love has something new for me, I don’t even need to read more than the album title to start anticipating it, clearing room on my shelf for it, imagining what it will sound like and how it will rewrite my life.

Often, though, there’s nothing like actually hearing a song or two to dampen than excitement. And it’s happened to me twice in one week now.

First up was Keane. You all know how much I like Keane – their first two albums both made my top 10 list (top two, actually). They have a reputation for being soggy milksops, but I think they write amazing pop songs, and they never treat their guitarless-trio format as a novelty. Keane’s third album, Perfect Symmetry, comes out in October, and you can download the first single, “Spiralling,” now at their site.

Within 48 hours last week, I went from not even knowing that Keane’s third album might be on the horizon, to salivating over the title and the spine-tingling countdown posted to their website, to counting the seconds as the single downloaded, and then to taking my first listen of what I hoped would be one of the best albums of 2008. And then I listened again. And again.

I’ve heard “Spiralling” about 12 times now, and I still don’t know what to make of it. First, let me say that the Keane boys have the reputation they have because they’re usually serious to a fault. They play a stately form of piano-pop with nakedly emotional (sometimes cliched) lyrics, and not a hint of self-deprecation. The dance mixes I’ve heard of their songs are so bizarre because the loose-limbed attitude of club music is a thousand miles removed from the stand-straight-and-sing style they’ve perfected.

So imagine my shock when I heard the start of “Spiralling” for the first time. It begins with a jubilant “Woo!” and a synth line right out of the Thompson Twins. The whole thing is a throwback to ‘80s dance-pop – this is a song Hugh Grant’s character in Music and Lyrics would sing. It’s very Wham, honestly. I have no idea if they’re serious – the rhetorical questions in the middle (“Did you want to be a winner? Did you want to be an icon? Did you want to be famous?”) make it hard to tell. They sound tongue-in-cheek, but the whole production is such a loving homage to 1983 synth-crap, and they play it so straight…

Apparently, the whole album carries an ‘80s vibe – one advance review compared it to Prince, which would be such a stylistic reinvention for this band that it beggars belief. I think I quite like “Spiralling,” for what it is – a catchy slice of retro-kitsch with a great chorus – but as a new direction for one of my favorite new bands of the decade? I’m not so sure. I am still curious to hear Perfect Symmetry, but I’d be lying if I said I was still breathlessly awaiting it.

And then came Ben Folds, another piano-pop favorite of mine. Ben’s new album is called Way to Normal, and it’s out September 30. He’s gone out of his way in interviews and press releases to quell any expectation of a bitter divorce album – Way to Normal is, apparently, a rock record through and through, snarky and fun. That’s okay with me, but I liked the more serious direction Folds had taken on the highly underrated Songs for Silverman, an album that I thought came closest so far to that great record Folds still has inside him somewhere.

There are two songs from Way to Normal up on Folds’ MySpace page: leadoff track “Hiroshima” and “Bitch Went Nuts.” They are, not to put to fine a point on it, awful. “Hiroshima” is an homage to Elton John’s “Benny and the Jets,” and tells a story about Folds falling on stage and hitting his head. “Bitch” is not an all-encompassing relationship smackdown, like “Song for the Dumped,” but is, instead, a long joke about dating a left-wing conspiracy nut. Both are lazy, neither one has any melody to speak of, and rather than being fun, which I think is what Folds is aiming for, both are terribly boring.

Often, during his concerts, Folds will make up songs on the spot. These will be funny, vulgar little ditties about things that happened to him that day, or stories he’s heard, or the audience in the theater that night. They’re funny, for what they are. The two tracks I’ve heard from Way to Normal remind me of those extemporaneous nuggets that have been, somehow, treated as real songs in the studio. It’s disappointing. I hear that “You Don’t Know Me,” the actual first single, is much better, and I still have hope that this album isn’t a throwaway clunker. But I’m not impressed so far.

* * * * *

Okay, enough griping. If you want an example of an album that lived up to all expectations, you have to hear Harps and Angels, the new one from Randy Newman.

It’s hard to explain Randy Newman to those unfamiliar with his work. Many people, if they know him at all, only know his songs for children’s movies. (Toy Story’s “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” for example.) What they don’t know is this creaky-voiced little man is one of the bleakest, funniest, most black-hearted songwriters around. Honestly. Just listen to “Rednecks” and “Political Science,” and get back to me. Newman has made the transition from angry young man to bitter old man look easy – he’s been bitter for decades.

It’s been nine years since Bad Love, Newman’s last album. That one was quintessential Newman – political and harsh (“The Great Nations of Europe,” “The World Isn’t Fair”), self-aware (“I’m Dead But I Don’t Know It”), and often pretty (“Going Home”). The same template applies to Harps and Angels, but this one skips the stylistic deviations – it’s all piano and orchestra, slipping from New Orleans shuffles to lovely ballads to old-time movie musical numbers. It’s consistent, rather than boring, and Newman’s sing-speak ramblings keep things moving along.

And, oh, the lyrics. These are classic Newman verses, taking aim at some standby targets and some fresh new ones. The standout here is “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country,” which turns out to be anything but. Newman reaches back through history to find leaders that make George W. Bush look good in comparison – Hitler, Stalin, Caesar. “The leaders we have, while they’re the worst that we’ve had, are hardly the worst this poor world has seen,” the apologist narrator sings, and then takes comfort in the Spanish Inquisition: “I don’t even like to think about it. Well, sometimes I like to think about it.”

“Piece of the Pie” is even more merciless. Over a galloping, dissonant orchestral backdrop, Newman paints a picture of a crumbling America, and then takes a stunning lyrical turn, putting himself at the top of the heap: “The rich are getting richer, I should know, while we’re going up, you’re going down and no one gives a shit but Jackson Browne…” This song contains my favorite verse of the bunch, which I will present in full:

“There’s a famous saying someone famous said
As General Motors goes so go we all
Johnny Cougar’s singing it’s their country now
He’ll be singing for Toyota by the fall…”

It’s not all bitching and moaning, of course – “Piece of the Pie” is followed up by “Easy Street,” an appealing amble with some nice saxophones. The title track is a funny recounting of a near-death experience, delivered as if you’re sitting next to Newman in the bar. “Laugh and Be Happy” is a joyous pro-immigration song. And “Potholes” is a delight, all about how forgetting makes it easier to forgive. “God bless the potholes down on Memory Lane,” Newman sings, before asking for “real big ones” to open up and “take some of the memories that do remain.”

The most politically incorrect thing here is “Korean Parents,” in which our narrator sets up a shop selling… well, Korean parents, playing off the notion that Korean children are smarter by saying they just get more discipline at home. The song, however, is a smack to the current generation – Newman believes that anyone can succeed if they’re given the right motivation, and by acknowledging the racial stereotype, he bursts through it. “Sick of hearing about the greatest generation,” he spits at the end. “That generation could be you, so let’s see what you can do…”

Newman saves one of the biggest laughs for himself – the end of “Only a Girl” is priceless. The song is about an old man talking to a friend about his new flame, a young, pretty girl, and wondering out loud why someone like her would be with someone like him. Here’s how it ends: “Maybe it’s the money. Jeez, I never thought of that. What a horrible thought. God damn it.”

But maybe Newman is mellowing with age, as Harps and Angels concludes with its prettiest song, “Feels Like Home.” It’s a straight-up love song, with no irony and no bitterness, and Newman even tackles a sweet melody with his creaky voice, and pulls it off. It’s a gentle finish to a terrifically dark and funny album, a latter-day Randy Newman classic. Harps and Angels is worth the nine-year wait, and while I’d like another one sooner rather than later, these 10 songs show why every Randy Newman album is an event.

* * * * *

Maybe I’m dumb, but I honestly didn’t expect Amy Ray’s solo career to keep on trucking the way it has. Ray is best known as one-half of the Indigo Girls, and if ever there were two people born to sing together, it’s her and Emily Saliers. Together, the pair took their musical collaboration in the ‘90s from acoustic folk to full-blown Crazy Horse-style rock, building and building album after album – they sounded like they were headed somewhere, a perfect synthesis of Ray’s love of rock and roll and Saliers’ gift for surprising pop melodies.

So when Ray issued her solo debut, Stag, in 2001, I thought this was just something she had to get out of her system. But no – shortly thereafter, the Girls abandoned their louder side, settling down into a pleasant, mainly acoustic pop-folk milieu. And Ray kept rocking out on the side, as if keeping the angrier, more distorted songs for herself.

Now here we are, seven years later. The last Indigo Girls album, Despite Our Differences, was so pleasant that I don’t even remember it. And Amy Ray’s third solo album, Didn’t It Feel Kinder, kicks its ass all over the place. I’m not sure what happened here, but I’m much preferring the work Ray is doing on her own. It’s like the Girls have become comfortable, while Ray is still searching, and the journey is always more interesting than the destination.

Kinder is a little quieter than Ray’s prior efforts. It opens with “Birds of a Feather,” all creeping atmosphere, but soon picks up with the Clash-inspired “Bus Bus.” The songs are simple, but simply effective, and Ray’s band is tight and energized. “Cold Shoulder” pivots on a simple acoustic riff – one of the simplest and most overused riffs in pop music history, honestly – but it works, especially since the lyrics invert the typical boy-meets-girl scene one might find over this riff: “See that girl over there, she’s gonna give me the cold shoulder, she may be straight tonight but last night she let me hold her…”

The loudest thing here is the almost-punk “Blame is a Killer,” a song that just wouldn’t work under the Indigo Girls name. But several of these songs are softer and gentler, and I can picture Ray and Saliers singing them together. Closing song “Rabbit Foot” especially sounds like something that would fit on Swamp Ophelia, with its sparse guitars and “Biko”-like toms. I would never begrudge Amy Ray the chance to make her own music her way, but I often miss the other voice when listening to this.

But that’s just my own prejudice, as a long-time Indigo Girls fan. Didn’t It Feel Kinder is a fine album, and Amy Ray is a fine singer/songwriter in her own right. Ray’s solo career is starting to feel less like a diversion and more like her primary focus, and with records like this one under her belt, I can see why. If you think the Indigos have become a little too soft-focus lately, Didn’t It Feel Kinder will feel like an oasis after a long crawl through the desert.

* * * * *

Before I heard it, I didn’t quite understand why Conor Oberst had a) recorded a solo album, and b) named it after himself. Now that I have, it makes a lot more sense.

For more than 10 years, Oberst has been recording as Bright Eyes, a veritable one-man show based on his songs and voice. Letting Off the Happiness was as much a solo album as Conor Oberst is – more so, in fact, since the number of musicians lending a hand on the new record far outnumbers the “band” lineup on most Bright Eyes records. It’s all Conor, so why switch up and use his real name after so long?

The answer is pretty obvious, really – 10 years ago, Conor Oberst would have been a Bright Eyes album, but in the ensuing decade, Oberst has built up his band effort far beyond its humble acoustic beginnings. Last year’s Cassadaga was the apex of this evolution, a massive sonic production 20 million miles removed from the sparse folk Oberst started with. The lyrics have remained constant, literate and difficult and frequently brilliant, but the sound has exploded.

Conor Oberst, on the other hand, is a throwback, a quick and dirty folk album that brings the focus right back to that guitar and that voice. It’s simple, it’s often a lot of fun, and it’s great. You can hear the difference right off the bat – “Cape Canaveral” is a sparse, slow, gorgeous piece featuring nothing but acoustic and vocals. On subsequent tracks, Oberst assembles a ramshackle band, but rather than the studio creations of recent Bright Eyes albums, these songs sound thrown together in a few drunken weekends.

Let’s be clear – none of these songs sound like they were made up on the spot, but rather written over time and then recorded quickly and simply. The whole album has an appealingly loose feel, especially ditties like “I Don’t Want to Die (In the Hospital),” a riotous freight train of a song that brings back Oberst’s throaty, warbling over-singing, judiciously excised from the past few Bright Eyes records. Here, though, it sounds right, like Oberst unfurling his wings and letting it fly.

The album even includes a couple of minute-long diversions, bits of fun that would have hit the cutting room floor during the Cassadaga sessions. But I don’t want to make it sound like this album is just a rushed-through sideline, because it contains some excellent songs. “Eagle on a Pole,” for example, sits between two sillier numbers, and flourishes, its pretty melody giving way to a brief, glorious guitar solo while Nate Walcott’s electric piano keeps things moving. “Lenders in the Temple” is wonderful, Oberst’s voice and guitar buoyed by subtle organ, and closer “Milk Thistle” is another sparse wonder.

It’s as a whole, though, that this album works. The quieter, more serious pieces rub shoulders with their more joyous cousins, and the complete record plays like a travelogue, full of rest stop stories and road songs. This is a Bright Eyes album, but it isn’t, and as much as I like the recent work Oberst has done under his band name, these 42 minutes under his own sound much more honest and real. Oberst has taken all the songwriting lessons he’s learned in the last 10 years, and made an old-school record, one that feels both off-the-cuff and lived-in. At age 28, Conor Oberst is coming into his own, and living up to his hype.

* * * * *

Before I go, a quick personal thank-you note to Jeffrey K. of Lo-Fidelity Records. This week, Jeffrey pointed me to a dirt-cheap eBay listing for the 77s’ 123 box set, and I jumped on it. It should be winging its way to me in a few days, and though I was prepared to pay about $100 for it, I ended up scoring it for a lot less. So thanks, Jeffrey! And everyone else, go pick up the new 77s album, Holy Ghost Building. It rocks.

Next week, more things I liked in high school.

See you in line Tuesday morning.