I’m standing in an empty house in which I used to live. My life is in boxes loaded on a truck, each labeled in scrawled shorthand so that the trained professionals to whom I’ve entrusted my existence know how to reassemble them into recognizable form. They’re all nice guys – Bill, the genial driver who seems like he’d be more at home in an academic setting; Lee, the soft-spoken Woody Allen fan; and Ken, the youngest, who talks a blue streak but can lift three heavy boxes on his back without straining. Still, I can’t help feeling a bit uneasy.

Bill tries to calm my nerves a bit by telling me that random truck explosions “rarely happen,” but adds that the company can’t insure “collections.” My whole life is a collection, one I’ve been amassing since the age of 15, when I first started earning my own money. It’s now grown beyond my ability to move it, and roughly half of it remains in my mother’s garage in Massachusetts. The other half fills at least a dozen large moving boxes, and it’s more comics and CDs and tapes than any one person needs. And yet I’m certain, since it’s happened before, that the loss of any one part of this collection would leave a massive, gaping hole in my well-being until it’s replaced.

I know, deep down, that none of this stuff really matters. It’s just funny pictures and shiny metal discs, plastic reels and magnetic tape. And yet to me, it’s my life frozen in time, a series of mile markers delineating moments I can’t get back, but can always relive. I buy an absurd amount of music and story during a year, but the best of it – the ones that imprint the very moment you first heard or read it on your brain forever – make the bulk of the collection worthwhile. I buy so much stuff because my favorites have always come into my life accidentally or tangentially, and I don’t want to miss out on those experiences. A not-so-good album with a great guitar player on it, for example, could lead to a brilliant album by that guitar player, one I never would have bought without the first one leading me there. Hence, that not-so-good album becomes just as important and vital to the collection as the brilliant one.

I suppose I collect artistic experiences because my personal experiences are always changing and fluid. At least, it seems that way whenever I’m standing in an empty house, as I am now, and thinking back on another concluded chapter. “I don’t live here anymore” is a simple, declarative statement, but trust me, it loses none of its indescribably sad power through repeated use. This is the third time in as many years that I’ve looked around an empty home and said those words to myself.

I don’t live here anymore.

I also collect artistic experiences because they often lead to personal ones. I met Jeff Picchioni, for example, during my long-haired ’80s metalhead days, another chapter long since closed. I was 16, I think, when Steve Pelland introduced us, and the three of us bonded over our shared love of wailing guitars and thundering drums. Pell and I would make these lists of the best guitarists, bassists, singers, etc. Pic never seemed to get into the list-making aspects of fandom, but he knew what he liked, and as time went on and both Pell and I discovered other forms of music we liked better, Pic retained his enduring fondness for ’80s metal. He still had it the last time I saw him, roughly five years ago. Amazingly, Pic found a charming girl named Heidi who also had a thing for hair metal, and the two got married almost a decade ago.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Pic lately, because one of his favorite bands was Great White, whose recent show in Warwick, Rhode Island led to 97 deaths in a tragic fire. Warwick isn’t that far from Bellingham, Mass., where Jeff and Heidi lived last time I talked to them. I keep telling myself that there’s just no way they were there, as I doggedly scan lists of identified victims. They’ve released names and photos of about half of them now, and no sign of the Picchionis, but I’m still worried.

And that gnawing feeling in my gut each time I search for their names is all the proof I need that my separate lifetimes in separate states are all connected. It’s like my record collection in a way – if one irreplaceable piece of it is lost, a hole opens up that can’t be filled. It’s a stupid analogy, and maybe I’m less human for thinking of life as a bunch of collected experiences and stories, but it’s how I’m wired, and I’m sorry, and I just really hope Jeff is okay. There are a million and one reasons why Pic wouldn’t have gone to Warwick, and only one that he would have – he loves Great White even more than I do, and I probably would have gone.

The finality of death, even possible and unlikely death, puts a somber tint on my weekend of packing and loading my old life into a truck. If I needed another sad reminder that my life is connected and not just a bunch of smaller lives in different states, it’s that every time I do this, I promise that the next life will be better, bigger, bolder than the last. And it never really is – I move, I get a job, I buy a lot of things and I never get around to writing any of the half-dozen stories and novels floating around in my head. I’ve had so much practice at holding on to my childhood that it probably won’t go now unless I make it go.

But if art is life, and in many ways it is for me, then this year seems like a good one to finally start really living mine. Several long-running passions of mine are concluding in the coming months, most notably Star Wars, the final episode of which bows in 2005, when I’ll be 30. Just this morning, official confirmation came in that this season is the last for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of the finest shows ever on television, and full of characters whom I love desperately. In March of 2004, Dave Sim brings his 300-issue comic book epic Cerebus to a close. I’ve been reading that book for more than 10 years. Similarly, Jeff Smith’s Bone, one of the first indie comics I ever bought, concludes in eight months at issue 55. I’ve been reading that one since 1992.

And if more end-of-childhood symbolism is needed, there’s always Mr. Fred Rogers, who died today of cancer. In a lot of ways, Rogers may have been the last vestige of human decency still on the airwaves. Like Charles Schultz, Rogers died shortly after bringing his life’s work to a close – the last episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood aired last year. Like most kids, I grew up on Mr. Rogers, and used to imagine that the paintings on my walls at home were my own Picture Pictures, and that I could see anywhere by looking through them. It’s strange that his death has affected me this much, but it’s another irreplaceable piece of my collected life that’s gone missing.

In a week’s time, I’ll be settled into my new life, in a new house decorated with all my old stuff. But the reason the collection continues to grow is that new experiences are always just as important as collected ones. We’re like sharks – without constant forward motion, we stagnate and die, and even though that process usually takes around 80 years, some of us die long before that. There’s magic in moments, even ones that fill boxes and take three people to move out of your house, and there are always new moments to look forward to.

Or so I think, as I take my last look around what I’m coming to accept as my old house, the place where I used to live. It’s a strange thing, but in some way, you never really leave a place behind as long as there are people and experiences you treasure. Keeping a collection of those things somehow makes it easier to move on. And even if that collection grows so large that moving it is a daunting task, it’s always worth it to take everything. You never know what you’ll eventually miss.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

The ongoing job search was halted this week by two and a half feet of snow. That’s 30 inches, all of it this heavy, thick, packed-down shit that’s back-breakingly difficult to remove. The entire state of Maryland pretty much closed down, and the governor even issued a decree banning non-emergency vehicles from state roads. I still can’t figure out what snow is good for, but at least now I know that its usefulness is not improved by mass quantities.

The roads are finally clear, for the most part, but the problem becomes where to put all this snow until it melts. The current solution has every intersection lined by nine-foot snowbanks, which are impossible to see around. Turning left, for example, has now become a game of chance, best played accompanied by a rousing Hazard County-style “yeee-hah!” Sure, driving the streets is like maneuvering a maze of death, but at least when this all melts the resulting water could flood those same streets, turning Baltimore into Venice.

I hate snow, in case you hadn’t guessed.

* * * * *

Entertainment Weekly debuted its comics section this week, which may well be the coolest thing ever. That a major entertainment publication has seen fit to devote two pages a month (the same space they afford live theater) is indeed a big deal, but what’s cool about it is that they seem to know what they’re talking about. They’re tackling really good comics, not just movie tie-in Marvel books, and offering non-comics readers a primer on why they should care about Frank Miller and Alan Moore and the like. For a comics fan, this is pretty neat, and while I can always wish for more in-depth coverage, I’m proud of EW for taking this step.

It’s too bad, though, that the primary example of comics storytelling currently in the public eye is the execrable Daredevil movie. The film distills years of Frank Miller’s best stories into one two-hour video game, complete with minimal character development and a script that could have been cobbled together by retarded monkeys. Or even Joe Eszterhas. The actors are all sleepwalking, except for Colin Farrell, who has somehow decided that calm, collected assassin Bullseye should be played like Tweak from South Park, all jitters and excitable outbursts.

There are a couple of ways to look at Daredevil, both of them bad. As a fan of the comic, this film flat-out offends me, simply because it provides the surface of the Daredevil story without any of the underlying emotions. All text, no subtext. Matt Murdock fights crime in this film for no other reason than because he does – one lost case doth not a vigilante make. He falls in love with Elektra Natchios for no other reason than because he does. (It certainly is not her character, here eviscerated and diluted beyond all redemption.) Ditto everything about this film – things happen because they do, because they’re in the script. It’s a colorful action movie with zero substance.

But what bothers me is the comic book Daredevil has never really been that. Frank Miller changed the comic in the early ’80s from a standard Marvel superhero book to a dark, meditative vigilante drama, and current DD scribe Brian Michael Bendis has further transformed it into a subtle, nuanced crime story, full of subterfuge and politics worthy of the best underworld mob movies ever made. The colorful costume has never been less prominent in this book, and even Alex Maleev’s menacing artwork adds to the sense that this is not your run-of-the-mill guys-in-tights comic book for preteens.

Which brings me to my second way of looking at the film – through the eyes of the non-fan. Daredevil the movie serves up an ample helping of the common public perception of comics. It’s simple, monochromatic, sort of fun and borderline brain-dead. It’s an action thriller for kids, dressed up with “darker” themes to bring in the teenagers.

The paradox is this: Daredevil is the current emissary from the land of comics to the rest of the world, and it defeats its own purpose. Put simply, if you like this film enough to check out a comic book store, you won’t find the film’s simplicity in the monthly comic. Those that would like the monthly comic, those with a taste for more sophisticated storytelling than most people believe comics can provide, will likely be so turned off by the Nintendo-ness of the movie that they’ll avoid the comic, and probably the comic shop, all together. Daredevil will do nothing to break the stereotype of comics, and may end up driving people away from comic stores instead of welcoming them in.

So here’s my exhortation: if you hated Daredevil the movie, check out Daredevil the comic. Marvel’s made it easy for you – the best DD stories of the past few years (and there have been a bunch) are collected in fairly inexpensive paperback form. Try Wake Up, Underboss or Out, all written by Bendis, or the beautiful dream that is Parts Of a Hole by David Mack.

* * * * *

If, like me, you’re wary of anything with the word “super” in its title – Superdrag, Supersuckers, Better than Ezra’s Super Deluxe, etc. – you probably haven’t tried Supergrass. If any band (besides Audioslave) needs a new name, it’s these guys, if for no other reason than to separate them from the herd.

Supergrass makes groovy, ’60s-inspired Britpop with a creeping disco influence, sometimes, when they’re not incorporating ’70s punk and Pink Floyd sounds. They’re like Sloan with heavy doses of Queen and the Bee Gees, kind of, if that band occasionally got into fistfights with the 1964 Rolling Stones. Sort of. While the Clash offers color commentary from the sidelines. Almost.

Forget about it. I’m not going to be able to accurately describe the cultural mish-mash that is Supergrass, and never has it been more delightful than on their just-released fourth album, Life on Other Planets. It’s damn near perfect, right down to the cheesy photo collage on the cover that’s right out of the Revolver reject pile. This band somehow makes their puree of styles sound natural and effortless, and it’s precisely that sense of whimsy that was missing from their last record, 2000’s Supergrass.

That album sounded a bit labored, and blew its wad completely on its shimmering leadoff track, “Moving.” In contrast, this one floats an inch or two off the ground for its whole running time, spinning one great melody after another. Its weightlessness is reminiscent of this band’s great second album, In It For the Money, which, despite a title ripped straight from Zappa, was a big ol’ pile of fun. Life on Other Planets zigs when you think it’s going to zag, and never overstays its welcome.

One of the great Supergrass tricks is to remain sonically faithful to whatever influence they’re incorporating. That means that the Rolling Stones-esque “Evening of the Day” sounds practically vintage, with nifty pianos and acoustic guitars, while the closing dirge “Run” contains layers of reverbed vocals straight out of Queen and loads of analog synthesizers and electric guitars a la Pink Floyd. Minute-long pseudo-punk number “Never Done Nothing Like That Before” finds the band raging on thudding six-strings and shouting in rough cockney accents, but the more progressive elements of the song are played like Yes might have recorded them. Or maybe like Zappa would have lambasted them. Powerhouse track “Brecon Beacons” makes the most of its upbeat rhythms, a la Sandinista-era Clash, but juxtaposes them with authentic disco synths and Beatles harmonies.

Sonics aside, though, Supergrass knows how to write a great song. Just check out “Can’t Get Up,” a thundering locomotive that finds the time to be melodically inventive as all get-out. Dig “La Song,” which somehow makes Lou Reed-style sing-speak rock sit and play nicely with a Byrds-esque chorus that is, indeed, made up mostly of the word “la.” In fact, every few seconds of Life on Other Planets, Supergrass is throwing something new at you, shifting their melodies hither and thither. Only “Run” stays in one place for long, and in that case, standing still is the point.

Supergrass is sometimes dismissed as “retro-chic,” whatever that means, as if their sound is some attempt to make the past ironically cool. This is bull. Like Sloan, Supergrass takes the time to capture the sounds of bygone eras as they were, not as some detached ironist like Beck might remember them. Unlike Sloan, Supergrass then meshes all those elements together, doing for the ’60s and ’70s what genre-defying groups of today are doing with modern music. Life on Other Planets is like a delirious collage of everything good about music before 1980, played straight. It’s also one of the best records I expect to hear this year, and truly deserving of the prefix “super.”

* * * * *

Here’s something funny: personality-challenged grungers Godsmack have done reviewers the world over a great favor by naming their new album Faceless. Saves us the trouble of saying so. Also in funny album titles, the new Eels record (slated for June 3) is called Shootenanny!, punctuation included. Chuckle.

Next week, Ministry, most likely.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Should be a short one this week. I still have no job, which means no extra money, which means no new music. I should be able to pick up the new Supergrass album by next week’s column, thanks to a few temporary jobs, but after that, I have no idea. I hope you’re all really interested in my thoughts on life outside the music world, ’cause you’re probably gonna get them for a while.

* * * * *

I am always surprised when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gets it right come Oscar time. By and large, they did a decent job this year, and in fact dropped one or two big surprises. Here are my thoughts and predictions:

As I mentioned before, I think Chicago has Best Picture all but wrapped up. Naturally, the Academy ignored the best and most original picture of the year, Adaptation, offering it only a Best Actor nomination for Nicolas Cage (well deserved) and a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination, which is just plain weird. Adaptation‘s script certainly would not exist without Susan Orlean’s novel, but it uses its source more as a launching pad for a metaphorical and metaphysical head trip. It’s a much more original script, one can argue, than some of the nominees in that category: My Big Fat Greek Wedding, for example, which floats on creaky ethnic humor and low-rent charm, or Gangs of New York, a typical revenge flick.

I’m glad to see The Two Towers nominated, because the second installment in Jackson’s trilogy does the tango all over the first one. For the life of me, I can’t figure out the widespread acclaim that Scorsese’s Gangs of New York is getting, especially since Daniel Day-Lewis (justly nominated for Best Actor) carried the film all by himself. Without his presence, the film would have been just another you-killed-my-father-now-I’m-going-to-kill-you slice of vengeance-schlock. In fact, it still is, but Day-Lewis is mesmerizing, the one bright light in an overwrought, overproduced misfire.

As for The Hours and The Pianist, well, I haven’t seen them, but both seem like prestigious films that won’t appeal to most Academy voters. I think Chicago is going to ride its toe-tapping vibe to a victory, for Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay, at least, and maybe a few acting awards. Those categories are harder to predict, but here goes:

It’s between Daniel Day-Lewis and Jack Nicholson for Best Actor, I think, unless Adrien Brody’s performance is everything people are saying it is. This category contains five well-respected performances, in fact, including class act Michael Caine’s in The Quiet American (which I also haven’t yet seen), but I’m giving the edge to Nicholson, especially considering that a) the Academy loves him and b) his film, About Schmidt, didn’t ride its positive buzz to Picture, Screenplay or Director nominations. Unless Day-Lewis upsets, Nicholson should get the prize.

Best Actress is similarly close, but I have to go with Nicole Kidman, who has really stepped out in recent years as a superb and fearless actress. Besides, The Hours is not going to win Best Picture, and Zellweger will likely have to make do with sharing in Chicago‘s top honor. I am kind of baffled by Salma Hayek’s appearance here, especially considering her phenomenal Frida co-star, Alfred Molina, is nowhere to be found. The film, unfortunately, concentrated its efforts on Molina’s portrayal of Diego Rivera, and gave short shrift to the title heroine. It’s odd, but Hayek, who did a passable job, was a supporting actress in a film named after her character, and really doesn’t belong here.

Both Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress are up in the air. I hope the Academy follows the Golden Globes in honoring Chris Cooper’s terrific performance in Adaptation, but my money’s on Paul Newman to collect Road to Perdition‘s one Oscar. (More on this later.) Likewise, while Kathy Bates is cleaning up in other awards shows, I think the Academy will go with Catherine Zeta-Jones as the first sign of Chicago‘s sweep. Julianne Moore won’t win here either, which is a shame – she’s swell, no matter what she does.

Sorry, Scorsese, but I think they’re gonna give Best Director to Rob Marshall, and likewise grant Bill Condon a statue for his adapted screenplay for Chicago. (Much as I’d like to see Charlie Kaufman and his imaginary brother Donald collect the award, Adaptation really doesn’t belong here.) And while it’s really cool to see both Alfonso Cuaron’s Y Tu Mama Tambien and Pedro Almodovar’s Talk to Her nominated here, I think the Academy will hand Scorsese’s directing award to his screenwriters: Jay Cocks, Steve Zaillian and Kenneth Lonergan.

So, to recap, here are my predictions:

Best Picture: Chicago

Best Actor: Jack Nicholson

Best Actress: Nicole Kidman

Best Supporting Actor: Paul Newman

Best Supporting Actress: Catherine Zeta-Jones

Best Director: Rob Marshall

Best Original Screenplay: Gangs of New York

Best Adapted Screenplay: Chicago

Okay, one jeer and one cheer, and then I’m done.

The Academy’s tendency to forget any film released before September often causes good films to go overlooked, but I think this is the first time in recent memory that a great one has slipped through the cracks. Poor Sam Mendes, who snatched up Best Picture and Best Director for his slipshod debut American Beauty, knocked it out of the park on his follow-up, Road to Perdition. As I mentioned earlier, Paul Newman received the film’s only nomination, and that’s criminal. Had this movie come out in late December, it would have undoubtedly nabbed one of the five Best Picture noms. This is one of the few examples I can cite of a film turning out better than its source – in this case, a decent graphic novel by Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner – and should not have been snubbed. Road to Perdition is a great film, perhaps second only to Adaptation as the year’s best.

But they did get one thing very, very right. The Academy gave raconteur Michael Moore his first Oscar nomination for his incredible, searing documentary Bowling for Columbine, and I hope he wins it. I’ve said it before, but Columbine is a film that every American should see – it examines our culture of violence and fear in a frightening, yet surprisingly even handed way. It’s scary, hilarious and moving, and a real achievement for Moore, and he deserves to be honored for it.

Okay, I’m done. Next week, probably Supergrass, and hopefully gainful employment.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I feel sort of like I’ve stepped backwards into a time warp. There’s a Bush in the White House, we’re about to go to war with Iraq, the economy’s in the shitter, and seven astronauts just died in a space shuttle explosion.

And you know what makes me mad about that last one? Everyone scrambling about and whining as if they’ve just realized that space exploration is dangerous. Think about this for a second. Astronauts willingly place themselves into a big metal tube that’s hurled at amazing speed through our atmosphere until they arrive in an airless, endless black space which contains no other humans, and then they trust that same metal tube to get them back, even though the temperatures and stress that tube encounters on its way through the atmosphere should kill them eight hundred times over. It’s a frigging miracle that every one of those people doesn’t die on these missions, and NASA ought to be commended for the dozens of times that they’ve got it right.

And for what? For knowledge, for exploration, for the chance to broaden our view of the universe just a tiny bit more. Astronauts don’t do this so that we’ll call them heroes, and if you don’t believe me, try to remember the names of all the crew members of the last three successful shuttle missions. Can’t do it, can you? They do this because they want to know, and because they believe that the knowledge they gain out there will perhaps help us all down here.

Basically, space travel now is just like air travel after September 11. It’s no more or less dangerous than it’s ever been, and the seven members of the Columbia crew knew that long before we did. Like the New York police officers and fire fighters, they accepted the risks and they did their jobs. They knew, in probably hundreds of ways that we didn’t and never will, how dangerous space travel is, and still they and dozens like them volunteered to sit in that flimsy metal tube and see what’s out there.

So, to the astronauts that made up Columbia’s crew: bravo, and thank you. To NASA: learn from this, and do everything you can to make future shuttles better and missions safer. And to our wacky government: the last thing these seven astronauts would want is to let their deaths end the space program. Space travel will never be safe, and that’s why those who choose to do it for the betterment of all mankind should be honored, and fully funded. Because right now, somewhere in America, there’s a kid who’s going to be the first person to set foot on one of the moons of Jupiter, or discover a cure for cancer on one of our space stations, or any number of other things that will never happen without a thriving space program. We owe it to the Columbia crew, the Challenger crew and all the others who’ve made space exploration the driving force of their lives.

* * * * *

I’m not sure yet what I think of the new incarnation of Cerberus Shoal, but since the kind folks at North East Indie Records sent me their latest CD free of charge, I’m going to use this column to try to find out.

Some background first. Portland, Maine’s Cerberus Shoal is a band quite unlike any other, and their bizarre history reflects this. They are now on their third lineup, and their third sound, a complete change from their previous two. The first incarnation released two nifty albums: a self-titled slowcore thing and a more experimental affair called …And Farewell to Hightide. That record was my introduction to the band, and I still love it – its five lengthy tracks spin a web of guitars and pianos that sucks you in.

I met the Shoalers just as they were finalizing their second incarnation, one that included the three members of fellow Portland band Tarpigh. They all live in the same small house, and they’re all approachable, passionate guys, which came through in the music this incarnation made. After the lovely soundtrack CD Elements of Structure/Permanence, this Cerberus Shoal embarked on a musical journey that produced a stunning trilogy: Homb, Crash My Moon Yacht, and last year’s Mr. Boy Dog. The music on these discs all but defies description – chaotic yet perfectly arranged, ethereal yet propulsive, organic yet otherworldly.

And then the two bands split – amicably, of course. They still live in that same house, after all. Tarpigh has gone on to release two strange albums of percussive sculpture-songs (Monsieur Monsoon and Go Hogh Wild), neither of which reach the heights they scaled with Cerberus Shoal. And as for the Shoalers themselves, well, they’re pretty much a whole different band. Original guitarist Caleb Mulkerin, bassist Chriss Sutherland and drummer Tom Rogers have welcomed vocalists Erin Davidson and Colleen Kinsella, as well as writer Karl Greenwald, and come up with something far removed from the C-Shoal of old.

They’ve been rolling out this new sound slowly, as they’re obviously still forming it, but so far the new Cerberus Shoal has released about an hour’s worth of material, including their two-track EP Garden Fly, Drip Eye and the first two installments of their nifty split-CD series. It’s pretty rare that I can have an hour of music on which to base my opinion and still not quite know what I think, but one thing I can say for sure is that this new band doesn’t have nearly the effect on me that the previous ones did.

Part of the problem is the increased emphasis on lyrics and vocals. If this band is going to keep calling itself Cerberus Shoal, which it has every right to do, then it’s going to invite comparisons with the previous bands, both of which produced long, winding instrumentals most of the time. The new Cerberus makes relatively short, clanging vocal pieces, with Greenwald’s lyrics often half-sung, half-chanted in an off-kilter three part harmony. The music seems to have incorporated a carnival atmosphere, and where previously there were waves of sound made by dozens of exotic instruments, now there is a somewhat lilting sparseness punctuated by percussive noises.

The band will likely disagree with me on this point, but the rules for writing interesting and enjoyable instrumental music are different from those for writing vocal music. Unlike the band’s previous vocal works, most of which used the voice like another instrument, it’s obvious that the lyrics for the new band’s songs were not intended for music, but written as poetry. Sometimes this works, and sometimes the band has to shoehorn syllables into its melodies. Since the sparse instrumentation allows the songs to be carried by the vocal melodies, this is quite noticeable – akin to what Alanis Morissette often has to do to be able to sing her unsent letters verbatim.

A good example of this is Cerberus Shoal’s latest offering, a split CD called The Vim and Vigour of Alvarius B. and Cerberus Shoal. Alvarius B. is the stage name of a guy called Alan Bishop, who (on the evidence of his two original tracks here) writes these caustic, acoustic-based folk ditties and sings them in a powerful, low voice. The concept for this split is terrific: Bishop and Shoal each recorded versions of each other’s songs, and then included the originals, so that listeners could hear the process of reinterpretation. It helps immensely that both artists seem impressed with and respectful of the other.

The two Alvarius B. songs (“Blood Baby” and “Viking Christmas”) are nasty and foreboding. (Sample lyric: “No two bodies are the same when you’re learning how to maim.”) Where Bishop casts these tunes in simple acoustics, however, Cerberus Shoal reinvents them from scratch, keeping the melodies but adding atmosphere and strange percussion. Strangely, these are my two favorite pieces from the new Cerberus Shoal, which says to me that my problem may be compositional, not tonal.

The C-Shoal original, “Ding,” bears that out. “Ding” is an 18-minute acoustic number (which Bishop covers in only nine minutes) that, sadly, repeats the same vocal melody for its entire running time – or, basically, until the band runs out of Greenwald’s words. The band does add layers as the song goes along, but not nearly enough to justify its running time, and they saddle the first seven or so minutes with an overdubbed typewriter noise that gets old after 30 seconds. It’s a shame, because the melody is quite lovely, but after 12 or so repetitions, it becomes tiresome.

My biggest gripe, however, is with the lyrics, which seem to be the only reason for stretching the tune to 18 minutes. “Ding” is an unconnected flow of phrases and mental dribbles, strung together for no other apparent reason than to seem poetic. Some examples: “Give gravy to the singing birds to shut them up, and focus on your diaphragm, or hold your nose in effigy to mom-ma.” “A ladder partakes of itself, climbing into arm safe apertures, convinced of its usefulness.” Or how about this one: “Hello amoeba, you are such timely beings, for swirls and shirts of face soft for hitting tree stems or short steps.” I will accept an 18-minute acoustic vocal piece if it’s got something to tell me, but as far as my unenlightened brain can tell, these are just words.

Which, again, would be fine, if the melody were captivating. Unfortunately, the new Cerberus Shoal seems to be halfway between writing vocal pieces and writing instrumental ones. The new songs are several steps above the first few offerings from this new group, however, and this is a band known for refining and redefining its sound. Hopefully, by the time this new Cerberus Shoal records its full-length debut, they’ll have finished their evolution into something different, yet as beautiful as the band that came before it.

Check out the band and all their recorded works at www.cerberusshoal.com. If you have to buy just one, get Homb, still a towering achievement.

Still no job. Will keep you posted. Next week, something more mainstream.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

A few quick words about the president:

I’m sure virtually everyone who tuned in to the State of the Union Address noted that W.’s speech was actually two speeches – the “compassionate conservative” bent of his domestic-oriented first half, marked by phrases like, “That’s what a caring society does,” and the paranoid, crazed war-mongering of his foreign-oriented second half. Among the surprises was an admission (delivered somewhat gleefully) that the U.S. Government has been tracking down suspected terrorists abroad, one by one, and killing them, which may not be exactly the sort of thing a lot of people want their tax dollars going to support. I may be wrong on that count, but vigilante justice never sat right with me.

Anyone who still thinks we may not go to war with Iraq is, at this point, probably deluded. That doesn’t bother me as much as W.’s insistence on hiding the whole truth from the public – we may be invading Iraq partially because of a perceived threat to our national security, but we’re also undoubtedly hoping to set up a puppet government in Hussein’s place, one that will grant us really cheap prices and a measure of control over that region’s oil. All this after announcing an initiative to develop alternative energy sources “to decrease our dependence on foreign oil.” We all know that the gas and oil companies that own our government would never allow that to happen, and would much rather dig up the Alaskan reserves than pursue some ecologically-minded alternative.

I honestly have never been more scared of my government than I am right now. Reports from across the globe substantiate the notion that the rest of the world thinks W. has lost his freaking mind. (For an eye-opener, go check out Tom Morello’s piece in the new Rolling Stone.) This is a government that does not ask the public what it wants, but charges forward in single-minded determination toward its own goals. Bush even broached Phase One of his pro-life agenda – did you catch it? He cautiously buried it among other applause-baiting domestic policy ideas. This is not a government of the people, by the people and for the people – it’s a government that dictates to the people, and when necessary, forgets that there is a people all together.

Plus, it just drives me nuts that the elected leader of our nation can’t wrap his tongue around the word “nuclear.” It’s new-CLEAR, not new-cue-LAR. Man, that makes me angry.

* * * * *

I am becoming increasingly certain that Chicago is going to win Best Picture this year, which I think is a shame.

Now, keep in mind that I haven’t seen Chicago, the film, but I have seen (and heard – again and again and again) Chicago, the stage musical. If Rob Marshall’s film stays true to the stage play, which I’ve heard it does, then it will definitely be a crowd-pleaser: a fluffy, safely ironic comment on fame with some fluffy, safe songs populating its edges. Not by any means a work of genius, nor by any stretch of the imagination the best film of the year.

That award, as of this writing, goes to Adaptation, a stunning work of recursion by the Being John Malkovich team of writer Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze. I have yet to see a film this year as fully and skillfully realized as this one, in which every scene can be enjoyed and marveled at on any number of levels. Adaptation pulls off the mind-boggling trick of making the audience a participant in the film’s creation, and through the whole thing, Kaufman and Jonze make rewriting the rules of conventional cinema look easy, and never less than completely engrossing.

And it probably won’t even be nominated.

What bothers me about Chicago is not just that it’s aimed at mass acceptance, but that its award will be nothing more than covering up for the Academy’s unconscionable snubbing of Moulin Rouge last year. At the time, the Academy’s nomination of Moulin for Best Picture without extending the same honor to its visionary director Baz Luhrmann seemed a ridiculous oversight. Now, however, it feels like the Academy is saying that they wanted to reward a musical, just not that musical.

Which makes a twisted kind of sense. Moulin Rouge is several leagues above the usual MGM-style movie musical, both in its visual style and in its use of six decades of popular tunes in a whirlwind summation of the emotional impact of music. Moulin is about that grand, epic, doomed love that’s been the subject of at least 75 percent of all pop songs ever written, and it uses those pop songs mainly for the direct emotional connection they already possess with the audience. Basically, my point is this: Chicago is just a musical, and a pretty empty one at that. Moulin Rouge is a musical about musicals, and about popular music in general, which tries to answer the question of why these little songs have such power over our feelings. It says more than Chicago could ever hope to.

Once again, the Academy is trying to cover its ass. Witness Denzel Washington last year, finally (finally!) winning the Oscar for Malcolm X and Philadelphia and countless other films in which he has stolen every scene in which he appears. What got him there? A piece of elevated genre trash like Training Day. It’s the same story here – Chicago will be unfairly honored for Moulin Rouge‘s vision, and it’s a shame because Luhrmann paved the way. Without his film, which many decried as an impossible project simply because it was a musical, something like Chicago would never have been made.

* * * * *

The recent avalanche of release dates just goes to show that I should never do one of my preview columns in January. Here’s the latest:

Out next week are new place-holder projects by Jars of Clay (Furthermore: From the Studio, From the Stage) and the Pet Shop Boys (Disco 3, a remix EP). The week after that (2/11) sees new ones from Mistle Thrush (Drunk With You), Supergrass (the U.K. hit Life on Other Planets) and John Mayer (a 2-CD live album called Any Given Thursday). The Mayer album is kind of disconcerting, considering he only has one album and one EP from which to draw material. It just proves that record labels will run any successful artist into the ground if he/she lets them.

Also on the 11th is the debut album from Glassbyrd, called Open Wide This Window. This is interesting to me because both Marc Byrd and Christine Glass, who make up this project, are auxiliary members of the Choir, one of my favorite bands.

On the 18th comes Ministry’s long-awaited Animositisomina, which initial reviews have sounding quite a bit like Filth Pig. Shame, really. Additionally, the 18th will see the debut by Office of Strategic Intelligence, which includes folks from Dream Theater and Fates Warning. Could be good, could be crap.

And then the floodgates open on the 25th, with new stuff through the month of March from Lyle Lovett, Wilco, Aphex Twin (a compilation of remixes winningly titled 26 Mixes for Cash), Third Eye Blind, Ani DiFranco (a set she’s called Evolve, which reportedly puts the capper on her last five years of growth), Joe Jackson Band, Allman Brothers Band, the Lost Dogs, De La Soul, Type O Negative and Portishead, to name a few. I’m most excited, however, about the April 1 release date for Infinite Keys, the second full-lengther from Ester Drang. It may give me a chance to make up for missing their phenomenal first one, Goldenwest, in 2001.

And there you have it. Hope I have a job soon.

* * * * *

We’re not going to be able to discuss Zwan without discussing Billy Corgan, so let’s do that first. Corgan has a reputation as a raving egomaniac, as a tyrannical genius who molds his bands in his image. Smashing Pumpkins certainly fit that bill – Corgan wrote all of their songs, sang and played guitar, and seemingly dictated the band’s larger-than-life public persona. The Pumpkins were kind of winningly arrogant, and none more than Corgan, especially around the time of their double-disc spectacular, 1994’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It was the first major double-record of the digital age, and at more than two hours, it presented the Pumpkins’ vision in an unbroken slab of noise and melody.

And then it all fell apart somehow. The band toppled under its own weight, most remarkably on their swan song, 2000’s MACHINA/The Machines of God. Here was a 70-plus-minute grand guignol that kept the noise while sacrificing nearly every inch of the melody. It was a chore to sit through – plodding and graceless, furious without direction. It was no real surprise that the Pumpkins broke up shortly thereafter, and that none of them have gone on to do anything remarkable since. (In fact, James Iha’s solo work only seems to prove that he, at least, lacked the vision to step out from Corgan’s big bald shadow.)

So what’s a prolific songwriter like Corgan to do? Well, it seemed obvious – he would go on to slog his way through a solo career dripping with importance and gravity, and we’d all ignore him until he went away. (Well, not me – I’d obsessively buy everything he put out for the sake of completeness, but you know what I mean.) Such a move felt inevitable, like Corgan’s installment of Behind the Music had already been written.

Lo and behold, though, Corgan went and found himself another band, this time with ex-members of Slint, Tortoise and Chavez, indie stalwarts all. He brought Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin with him, and dubbed this new unit Zwan.

Or maybe he didn’t, and that’s the point. Even though he sings every song (and wrote most of them) on Zwan’s just-released debut, Mary Star of the Sea, Corgan has cast himself here as just another contributor, just a regular guy in a band. In fact, Corgan’s name doesn’t appear in Zwan’s lineup – he calls himself Billy Burke, for some reason, as if we couldn’t instantly spot him from the inimitable tone of his voice. Corgan is trying to convince us that Zwan is just another band, a far cry from the saviors-of-rock pose he adopted while in the Pumpkins. Moreover, he’s letting it be known that Zwan is not a puppet band under his control.

And impressively, the record bears that out. Despite its Corgan-esque title, Mary Star of the Sea is marvelous, and oceans apart from what we expect from its primary author. Considering some of the song titles (“Declarations of Faith,” “Ride a Black Swan,” “Heartsong”), I fully anticipated a wall of noise topped by Corgan’s trademark nasal wail – basically, Pumpkins redux. So imagine my surprise when I pressed play on the first track, “Lyric,” and out came a swirl of jangly, acoustic-electric guitars that wouldn’t sound out of place on a BoDeans album.

For most of its running time, Mary Star of the Sea is a light, hooky romp through pop-rock land. The songs are simple, yet winning, and they actually have melodies, with choruses and everything. Even “Of a Broken Heart” is delightfully free of moping. Corgan adapts several traditional spiritual tunes here as well, to decent effect. Zwan has three guitarists, including Corgan, Matt Sweeney and David Pajo, but they rarely combine them into a full frontal assault. Rather, the guitars chime in atop one another, layering sweetness rather than sludge.

Even Corgan himself sounds more relaxed in this environment than he ever has. His voice has thankfully lost much of that pinched quality that weighed down his Pumpkins work, and his melody lines are gracefully sung. It helps that bassist Paz Lenchantin adds high harmonies in her clear, lovely tones as well. If I didn’t think it an inappropriate image, I’d say that Corgan seems to have let his hair down on this record. (How else to explain a trio of songs with the honest-to-Christ real titles of “Endless Summer,” “Baby Let’s Rock!” and “Yeah!” Punctuation originally included, by the way.)

There is one song that reeks of rotten Pumpkins, however, and that’s the 14-minute title track. It lopes onward, saturated in feedback, until it nearly eradicates the light sense of fun in the preceding 12 tracks. Thankfully, Corgan pulls out of it at the end with the dreamy acoustic closer, “Come With Me.” Still, one can feel the old ambitions pushing at the edges of Zwan, and I hope that Corgan has enough sense to stick with the original plan. The accompanying DVD shows little else but the band chumming around, five regular folks who happen to make music, and it rings a little false.

While it’s likely true that Corgan’s one-of-the-guys thing here is just as much a piece of theater as his previous rock-god stature, I hope he can play the part, because Zwan, at least on this album, is the most enjoyable setting in which we’ve ever heard him. If he can just relax and have fun with it, Zwan should be a most pleasant trip. If not, it could be another spectacular failure, but at least we got one zippy little record out of the deal.

Next week, who knows, considering my financial status. Donations are accepted, of course.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Early on in his new live album, Prince admonishes his audience for what he thinks they may be expecting. “If you came here to get your Purple Rain on,” he says, “you in the wrong house.” He goes on to add that he’s not interested in what his audience knows, but what they are willing to learn.

That’s a bold statement from a once-relevant artist like Prince, who hasn’t had a hit in a decade. The general public, as a rule, doesn’t like to be taught things, and also doesn’t like to be reminded of how much they don’t know. America remembers Prince for Purple Rain, 1999 and Sign O’ the Times, and that’s about it. They may remember his contribution to the Batman film, and might recall later hits like “Diamonds and Pearls” and “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World,” but doubtless most of the nation’s consumers are unaware that Prince has continued to make music during the last 10 years.

Not to feed the man’s ego, but if you’ve lost track of Prince since 1993, you’ve been missing one of the most dramatic and experimental transformations afforded by pop culture. More accurately, the type of musical reinvention that Prince has undergone has only recently been made possible by pop culture, specifically the internet. More than any of his contemporaries, the Minneapolis wunderkind has seized hold of the ‘net, gambling on it to float his artistic endeavors.

Prince calls his online home the NPG Music Club, and for years it’s been his primary form of contact with his audience. Not only is Prince aware that his audience has diminished considerably since his commercial heyday, but he encourages it, shunning the marketplace and refusing to compromise his vision. Most often, it works: the general public has left him well enough alone since he changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol and started releasing three-hour albums at regular intervals.

Prince isn’t content with just avoiding the public, however – he actively seeks to repel it. His major label “comeback” album, 1999’s Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, was his weakest in many years, and conversely, his independently released 2001 record, The Rainbow Children, was a masterpiece. For the last 10 years, Prince has been all about his core fans, to the point of offering them whole albums through the NPG Music Club that are unavailable anywhere else, and giving club members the best seats at all his concerts. It’s as if he knows there’s only a select few out there who will get what he’s doing, and he caters to them exclusively. The internet has granted him the opportunity to piss off everyone else and still keep his career going.

The kicker is that he’s making the best music of that career right now, and very few people are hearing it. His transformation truly began in the late ’80s, when Prince began working with Miles Davis on the trumpeter’s ill-fated Doo Bop project. We’ve yet to hear the results of those sessions, which were among the great jazzman’s last, but it was around that time that Prince started experimenting with jazz fusion on the spectacular Black Album. Those experiments have fully bloomed on The Rainbow Children, on which Prince embraced the (for lack of a better term) blackness of his sound – part slamming jazz club, and part Baptist revival.

During the years leading up to The Rainbow Children, Prince quietly assembled an amazing band, including mindblowing drummer John Blackwell and sax player Maceo Parker, who played with James Brown for more than a decade. He finally took that band on the road last year, and the results of that tour are documented on his first-ever live record, One Nite Alone…Live. Never one to do anything small, Prince has packed three CDs full of terrific music and packaged them in a lovely box, along with a thick booklet. If you want an excellent primer on where the man is now musically, as well as further evidence of his sheer undiminished ability, this thing is well worth your $50.

But if you’re looking for the hits you remember, well, as the man said, you in the wrong house. The focus is on jazz-funk improvisation here, and Prince’s band rivals Parliament Funkadelic in that respect. Disc one opens with the title track of The Rainbow Children, an 11-minute fusion workout that gives Prince the chance to shine on guitar. (A quick side note – Prince remains one of the most underrated guitarists currently working, jamming with the fire of Hendrix and the melodic agility of the best jazz players.) He follows that up with the mellow “Muse 2 the Pharaoh” before launching into the 12-minute improv assault of “Xenophobia.” At this point, any hopes you may have of hearing “Little Red Corvette” should be dashed.

Disc one goes on to showcase his extraordinary band, and near the end he pulls out some golden oldies with “Strange Relationship” and “When U Were Mine.” Then he sucker-punches you with politics on “Avalanche,” a deceptively smooth piece about racism and slavery. Some may not be used to political statements from Prince, and this one is couched in ill-fitting light jazz, marking it as one of the few failures of his later output. Still, Renato Neto’s piano solo is terrific, and Prince is in fine voice, letting his chilling falsetto carry the tune.

The politics return on the much more successful “Family Name,” which opens disc two. A striking rant about the subjugation of surnames during slavery, the song practically explodes with energy. The band rips through “Take Me With U” and “Raspberry Beret,” Prince’s one concession to his hit-machine past, before careening into “The Everlasting Now,” a sweaty funk exercise. (They recently performed a truncated version of this on The Tonight Show.)

Most of disc two, however, is taken up with a lovely medley performed by Prince himself on piano and voice alone. This is as intimate and unadorned as the man has ever allowed himself to sound, and it’s fascinating. Here is “Adore,” and “Diamonds and Pearls,” and “Starfish and Coffee,” and “Free,” all coming off as classics reborn. Here too is Sinead O’Connor’s hit “Nothing Compares 2 U,” which Prince wrote, sounding like a lost child returning home. The medley culminates with “Sometimes It Snows in April,” an underrated gem, and it’s almost a shame when the band comes back in for the mammoth “Anna Stesia.” But not much of one, since that song is given new, fully organic life.

Much has been made of Prince’s newfound spiritual side, and it’s in full evidence here. “The only four-letter word you’re gonna hear tonight is ‘love,'” he says at one point, and he keeps his promise – One Nite Alone is strictly PG. The later material includes songs about theocratic order, accurate knowledge of Christ, and above all, the enduring love of God. It’s interesting to note, however, that this is not a new development. Prince has been singing about God all along, balancing it (as he still does) with songs about sexual union. Most striking is “Anna Stesia,” from 1988’s Lovesexy, which concludes (both the song and the concert) with the refrain, “Love is God and God is love, girls and boys love God above.”

As fitting a closer as that is for the new Prince, he’s not quite done. One of the benefits of membership in the NPG Music Club this year was an invitation to an after-show party, where the band took the stage again for a loose, funky jam. One Nite Alone includes a third disc recorded at these parties, called The Aftershow…It Ain’t Over, and it’s here that the band really cuts loose. Guests Musiq and George Clinton show up to lend a hand, but aside from those interludes, It Ain’t Over is one hour-long groove, and a stunning one at that. It’s the icing on an already tasty cake.

Through it all, what stands out most is how well Prince has managed the transition from brash young upstart to elder statesman. He’s in a far better and more confident place than, say, Stevie Wonder was at this point in his career, and all the signs point up. Just three years ago, he was wearing glittering blue body suits and sounding ill at ease with his place in the world. Now he’s tricked out in suits and hats and self-assuredly doing what he does best – playing great music. There’s nothing tentative about One Nite Alone – rather, it’s a document of an artist secure in his talent and his vision. Now more than ever, he’s worth listening to.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I wanted to start off this first column of this brave new year with a bold pronouncement. Are you seated? Okay.

I, too, have cloned a human baby.

I’m not going to tell you how I did it, I’m not going to show you a picture or tell you the baby’s name, and in fact I’m not going to provide proof of any kind whatsoever. But I did clone a human baby. Really. I trust that this simple announcement, taken on faith, is enough to run the story on the front page of every newspaper in the country, and give it plenty of coverage on TV. Even CNN. I just love CNN.

Okay, fine, I didn’t clone a human baby. But I did manage to clone this column. Don’t believe me? Go here.

* * * * *

A few days ago, I was hanging out at a friend’s house listening to old De La Soul tracks for the hell of it. We were waiting to head off to a Christmas party in Malden, and my friend thought he’d show me his expansive MP3 collection, most of which he’s ripped from CDs he owns. There are a few, though, he’s downloaded from the ‘net, including representative tracks from every De La record.

I hadn’t heard “Three Is a Magic Number” in a long time, and it was just as cool as I remembered. Since then, though, I’ve been noticing an almost supernatural recurrence of the number three, and because I’m anal and annoying, I thought I’d share some of those recurrences with my loyal readers. Ready? One, two, three…

Firstly, and most obviously, welcome to 2003. This column kicks off the third year of the online incarnation of Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. as well, and don’t think I haven’t noted the three before the A.M. there, too. It’s taken from the first Simon and Garfunkel album, although their third, Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme, is my favorite. (Incidentally, I have bandied about the idea of transcribing and posting the Face Magazine run of this column here, and I hope I never have that kind of free time on my hands.)

Lots of things come in threes – good things, celebrity deaths, triplets. During my not-so-selective sex life, I’ve even come in a few threes myself. (Ach…too nasty?) It took me roughly 15 hours (or five times three) to get to New England, and I have roughly three weeks left here before launching into the next uncharted phase of my life. And since I’ve been here, I’ve seen three movies, including one that’s the middle part of a trilogy.

The most recent film I saw was a documentary by Michael Moore called Bowling for Columbine that’s probably my favorite film of 2002, partially for lack of competition. It’s his third documentary, and while we’re on the subject, I’ve also noticed that many of the younger directors like Moore don’t hit their stride until their third film. David O. Russell, for example, didn’t knock one out of the park until Three Kings, which also has a three in the title. Kevin Smith delivered on his promise with his third, Chasing Amy. Even Spike Lee floundered around for a bit before his third film, Do the Right Thing, hammered it home.

And Moore’s third (not counting his foray into fiction, Canadian Bacon) is a wonder to behold, and should be mandatory viewing for every American, especially those with a shiny, happy, post-9-11 vision of this nation. For an exhausting two hours, Moore digs deep into the culture of violence in the U.S., quickly discounting the easy answers (guns, violent movies). He presents some interesting statistics – the U.S. leads every nation on Earth in shooting deaths per year, for example, by about 10,000. Other countries have the same violent films and TV shows we do, and even a similar number of guns. Canada, for example, has a number of guns equal to roughly 70 percent of its population, yet only a few hundred shooting deaths per year.

Along the way, he makes convincing cases for contributing factors, such as economic policies and a media that feeds on violence, but he comes away from this film with no clear-cut answers, a first for this often swaggering liberal. He does offer his most affecting examination of America yet, including first-hand testimonial and footage of the shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. He helps two Columbine survivors make their case to K-Mart by trying to return the bullets still lodged in their bodies for a refund. And he even tries to wake up poor Charlton Heston to the realities of gun violence in an uneasy, uncomfortable scene of great power.

Many bands don’t get where they’re going until their third album, either. Notables include U2, whose War really solidified their sound and style; Wilco, who decided with Summerteeth that they didn’t want to be Uncle Tupelo or the Rolling Stones; and Radiohead, who famously made the best album of the 1990s with OK Computer. And with that clumsy segue into this column’s stated purpose, here’s a look at the next three months of new music:

January is traditionally barren, and this year is no exception. Near month’s end, we’ll start to see a trickle, including new ones from King Missile and P.M. Dawn, two bands that also came into their own on their third albums Happy Hour and Jesus Wept, respectively. Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy launches his side band with Jim O’Rourke, called Loose Fur, on the 28th, and Billy Corgan also stages a comeback with his new band, Zwan. The album even has a typically Billy Corgan title: Mary Star of the Sea. Three words: get over yourself.

February has a few more interesting ones, including Ministry’s Animositisomina, Marilyn Manson’s The Golden Age of Grotesque, the Lost Dogs’ Nazarene Crying Towel, and the U.S. release of Life on Other Planets by Supergrass. Also coming in February is the Wilco-Minus 5 collaboration, Down With Wilco, that was dropped from its original label. Seems to happen to those guys a lot.

March, the third month, should see the new one from Ryan Adams, called Love Is Hell. I wonder if he paid Matt Groening any royalties for that title? Also in March, new ones from Anthrax, the Joe Jackson Band and Radiohead, who promise pop songs instead of quasi-atmospheric drivel this time. And if you haven’t gotten enough of Jeff Tweedy yet in 2003, the third of his projects hits on March 11 – a complete remaster and re-release of the three Uncle Tupelo albums.

Speaking of remasters, the complete Queensryche catalog is also slated for the repackage treatment in 2003. They fall into the previously mentioned category of bands, having been little more than a competent metal outfit until their third album, Operation Mindcrime.

Okay, enough of this. I’m off to watch one of my Christmas presents – the complete first season of South Park on DVD. Three DVDs, to be exact. I’m still waiting for another of my Christmas gifts – a box set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs. Season three, in fact. Next week, I promise I’ll get to that Phish review, but the week after that, the third week of 2003, I’ll be tackling the new live box set from Prince. Guess how many CDs? Yep, three.

See? It’s everywhere.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

As you read this, I am probably on the road.

From Indiana to Massachusetts is roughly 16 hours, provided no trucks drop their spare tires in front of me, precipitating a week-long delay in Pit of Hell, Pennsylvania. My little life has been insanely busy over the past week or so, meaning I didn’t have as much time to dissect and analyze the Year That Was as I normally do. But I will say this.

It was better than I remembered.

As I put this year’s Top 10 List together, I found myself spinning records I hadn’t heard since February in some cases, and slipping into a strange, nostalgic reverie. I grumble constantly, but when I look back on it, I enjoyed this year, especially meeting the people I met, and the same goes for the music I heard. I have a tendency to only remember the bad stuff, and crafting this list reminded me that there was good stuff, and quite a bit of it.

To be sure, this year has nothing on last year. 2001’s top five would pummel this year’s, despite what the hipper-than-thou pundits at those alternative music sites would have you believe. In scouring these year-end lists from critics I respect (and a few I don’t), I found that I agree with a good majority of them on the top pick of the year. If you’ve been reading all along over the past 12 months or so, you already know what it is. There were no last-minute surprises. (Well, one, and it’s at number two.)

Overall, though, I think 2002’s output resulted in a decent list, and a top five that holds its own. I expected this year’s list to be a comedy of errors, much like 2000’s debacle, but lo and behold, Eminem didn’t even rate an honorable mention this time. I know, I know, he made a good record with The Eminem Show, but that’s all it is – good. I fully expected to see it on this list, until I revisited it, and held it up next to the 10 I picked, most of which are near-brilliant. It just didn’t measure up – it’s overlong, and has too many mediocre tracks. The brilliant stuff (“Cleaning Out My Closet,” “My Dad’s Gone Crazy”) is practically drowned in filler. Sorry, Em. But your movie was good, so don’t feel too bad.

I also seriously reconsidered my rules for inclusion this year, and have relaxed them a bit, which should make constant reader Mark Reid happy. If you’re just joining us, here’s the criteria: Entrants for the Top 10 List must be released between January 1 and December 31 of the given year, must be studio albums (no live or best-of discs), and must be available in record stores in the U.S. That last one, more than the others, has run its course, and this year I’ve opened the selection process up to any album available for purchase online.

The rule came about because when I started this column in Face Magazine, I wanted to make sure that my entire audience could find and purchase all 10 finalists. I got a disturbing amount of free CDs in my Face days, some of which were unavailable outside of the artist’s mailing list. “Bah,” I said. “What’s the point of proclaiming something as genius if no one can find it or buy it?” I asked the ceiling. (I asked my office ceiling a lot of questions in those days.)

But now, my audience has grown, or at least the scope of my audience has expanded. I have readers on three continents (that I know of), and that American-centric rule needs to go. I assume, obviously, that everyone reading my stuff at least has a ‘net connection, hence anything one can buy online is now eligible. (Ret-conners may want to slip both Kip Winger’s Songs From the Ocean Floor and Peter Gabriel’s OVO into the 2000 list, somewhere around one and two, as they were kept off by the old rule.)

But that’s as far as I’m going. I took a long, hard look at the second rule, mostly because my favorite album of the year is, by those criteria, ineligible. That album is Ben Folds Live, the best $15 you can spend, unless you put it towards a ticket to one of his shows. It’s mesmerizing, hilarious and dynamic, and it recasts old favorites in new lights, which almost qualifies it as a new album. But not quite. I just can’t change that rule – composition is still at least half the requirement.

And sadly, I’m not going to bend on the first rule either, and this year that rule hurts. I heard two albums this year that are more than worthy of inclusion in the Top 10 List, except for the fact that they both came out last year. I know I can’t hear everything, but I really can’t bring myself to include 2001 albums in the 2002 list. But at least I can mention them here, and tell you they’re both amazing.

First is Torben Floor’s terrific Matinee, which is only available online outside of Chicago. (Go to www.beautyrockrecords.com.) They’re the best minor-label band I’ve ever heard, except maybe for Cerberus Shoal, and their album contains 10 of the most melodic and beautiful songs I’ve come across in a long time. “Sleep Too Much,” to name one, should be in every melody addict’s songbook. Given optimum circumstances, it hopefully won’t be long before you see Carey Ott’s face on your MTV, but even if they never make it huge, Ott’s songs will still be fantastic.

Equally regrettable is the exclusion of Ester Drang’s miraculous Goldenwest, a masterpiece of tone and atmosphere. I’ve described them this way before, but it works: imagine if Radiohead had gone into their Kid A sessions and not forgotten to write songs. Every minute of Goldenwest transports you to some unknown landscape, then comforts you with glorious, warm melodies. It manages to be completely alien, and yet beautifully human. Pick this wonder up at www.esterdrang.com.

Yeesh, more than a thousand words already, and we haven’t even started the honorable mentions. There are seven of them, and here they are:

I can’t objectively assess George Harrison’s Brainwashed, so wrapped up am I in the attendant emotions of his loss. Honestly, I didn’t expect that hearing this album would affect me in this way. I think the album is good, but largely for what it says rather than the way it says it. I feel bad, since Harrison never had a shot at this list – his last album came out before I started doing them – but I just can’t reward an album for the emotions that surround it. Still, it gets an honorable mention just for making me feel something.

Which is more than I can say for Beth Orton, who made a maddening third album with Daybreaker. The good stuff here is enough to get it mentioned, but revisiting it recently brought into focus just how lifeless most of it is. Central Reservation was a stunner, this one’s just pretty good, and it’s here mostly because of the wonderful closer, “Thinking About Tomorrow.”

Indiana band the Elms burst out of nowhere last year with a Beatles-inspired sound that’s uplifting without pandering. I missed them completely in 2001, but I jumped on board just in time for their great second album, Truth, Soul, Rock and Roll, this year. Sixpence None the Richer also released a superb pop album this year after a long absence, and I hope they’re looking on the success of Divine Discontent as a form of vindication. They’re highly underrated, as even a cursory listen to this immaculate disc will reveal.

Then there are the two discs that I can’t adequately describe, but which rewrite the rules of music around them. The aforementioned Cerberus Shoal finally released the double-disc Mr. Boy Dog, and it marches to no drum but its own. It’s silly, dissonant, manic and brilliant. Iceland’s Sigur Ros returned with an untitled album that everyone’s just calling ( ), but eight otherworldly dirges by any other name would still sound as sweet. Both these albums defy categorization, and speak of the infinite possibilities of music.

And then there’s Michael Roe, who actually made three swell albums this year. Both his instrumental excursion Orbis and his EP with the 77s, Direct, are terrific, but he came closest to the Top 10 List with Say Your Prayers, a collection of stripped-down acoustic meditations. Truthfully, Prayers was kept off the list almost entirely because of its brevity – 28 minutes is not quite an album – but with Roe’s other contributions this year, it adds up to two full CDs, so we’ll cut him a break. His work here is exceptional, heartbreaking and graceful, and should not be overlooked, so call it Number 11, or 10 and a half, or whatever convinces you to buy it from www.michaelroe.com.

Are you ready? Here comes the list:

#10. Beki Hemingway, Words for Loss for Words.

I discovered Beki Hemingway at this year’s Cornerstone Festival, where she put on a fantastic show on the acoustic stage. Her second album is deceptively simple, but hides some remarkable truths and insights. No artist made an anthem of hope as genuine as “Good Again” this year, and that’s just the opener. Hemingway possesses what can only be described as a hard-won innocence, and her nine originals here are so well crafted that I’ll forgive her for covering “Just Remember I Love You,” even if she does a great job with it. The most welcome, surprising discovery of the year.

#9. Duncan Sheik, Daylight.

Without doubt, Daylight is the second half of Duncan Sheik’s mission statement, and it presents itself (even in title) as the polar opposite of last year’s acoustic triumph, Phantom Moon. Sheik’s thesis is that radio-ready pop music need not be stupid, and Daylight certainly provides ample evidence, from the pulsing beat of “On a High” to the driving melody of “Start Again.” If he’d stuck with that motif, this album would be merely pretty good, but he decorates his album with glorious epics (“Shine Inside”) and sweet acoustic pieces (“For You”) that radio would never come near. Truthfully, Sheik is the kind of shy, thoughtful guy who can open an album with the line, “Clearly I’m a genius,” and not come off as arrogant, but if Daylight proves anything, it’s that he’s too smart for the radio.

#8. Richard Julian, Good Life.

This one seems to bend the rules a bit, since I heard and reviewed it last year, but My Good Man Records released this in 2002, so it’s fair game. And the fact that only seven albums placed higher than a disc I heard last December should give you a fair idea of how good this thing is. Richard Julian possesses a stunning wit that’s only matched by his way with a melody and his sweet yet biting voice. It’s been said that artists are only interesting when they’re in pain, and the ironically titled Good Life finds Julian hitting bottom more than once, and coming up with gold. It was recorded on a shoestring, which only places the emphasis where it ought to be – on Julian’s voice and lyrics. Good Life is the kind of unpredictable album that will caress you just to draw you in and bite you, and it surprises and affects like only the best works of art can. Get this one (and his two excellent others) at www.richardjulian.com.

#7. Tom Waits, Alice.

The gem of his two releases this year, Alice casts Waits’ gravel-voiced dramatics against some of the prettiest and saddest backdrops he’s ever arranged. More than 30 years into his idiosyncratic career, Waits proves once again that he’s an absolute master. His voice takes some getting used to, to be sure, but his songs are immediate and powerful. Among the highlights this time are the tearful “Flower’s Grave,” the forlorn “No One Knows I’m Gone” and the bizarre “Table Top Joe,” but this is all terrific. When Waits creates tumbling structures of percussion to shout over, he’s compelling, but when he contrasts his growl with gorgeous harmonies played on string quartets and pianos, as he does on most of Alice, he’s impossible to ignore, and impossibly heartbreaking.

#6. Aimee Mann, Lost in Space.

To my mind, this is the last album Aimee Mann gets to make like this. She’s started her own record label, she’s taken complete control of her musical destiny, she’s been happily married for years – in short, she’s cleared up nearly every personal problem she used to sing about, so there’s really no reason for her to keep sounding this sad and forlorn. Just this last time, however, I’m glad she does. Lost in Space is the first album Mann made specifically for her SuperEgo Records, and it’s the fullest and most complete document of her recent style – sad, slow songs populated by hopeless, desperate people. It’s an album that grows richer and sadder with each successive listen, her mastery of songcraft so subtle that you don’t realize how well-made it is the first time through. If you consider Lost in Space as one long song, it’s a song she’s written many times, but she does it with such melodic grace that it’s not only forgivable, it’s extraordinary.

#5. Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head.

Speaking of albums that get better with each play, here is Coldplay’s glorious, underrated symphony of emotion. A Rush of Blood to the Head (terrible title, that) sounds like the moment just after waking, when you’re trying to remember the beautiful dream you just had. Some have criticized the band for making “nice” music, a description that denotes an appalling lack of attention. Coldplay is about the times in your life when you realize it is never going to be as wonderful as it so easily could. This is an album leaps and bounds ahead of their debut, one that floats in on its own atmosphere, lifting you up just to show you the dirt beneath you. Like Mann’s album, most of Blood is almost unbearably sad, but unlike Mann, it’s obvious that Coldplay can and have imagined what a better world would look (and sound) like.

#4. Neil Finn, One All.

I’m ashamed to admit that drafts of this list exist without Neil Finn’s beautiful record accounted for. I can’t explain that, but I can say that I’m in good company – most of the world has forgotten about Finn, if they ever knew about him. One All (the U.S. version of last year’s U.K. release One Nil) doesn’t do much to assert itself, which has always been Finn’s problem – he’s content just writing, playing and singing the best pop songs he can come up with. This album has 12 of them, and while they may seem low-key and unobtrusive at first, they get under your skin with repeated listens. (Noticing a pattern here?) If I had to nominate one song for best of the year, it would undoubtedly be “Turn and Run,” but I’d also put in good words for “Human Kindness,” “Anytime” and “Driving Me Mad.” This is mature, complex pop from one of the finest living songwriters, and we should really be paying attention.

#3. Phantom Planet, The Guest.

First it took me by surprise, then it blew me away, and finally it took hold of my brain and wouldn’t give it back. The Guest is the most insidious album I’ve heard in a while – it masquerades as a teenage alterna-pop record, but in truth it heralds the return of the song to the younger generation, and just in time. The songs on The Guest are delightful throwbacks to a time when melody was king, and when pop and rock were not antonyms. The Guest is sweet, delirious, compact and hummable, but best of all, it fucking rocks. It easily sets every effort by bands their age from the last 15 years on its ear, and serves as the best reminder this year of the all-important cardinal rule: If you want to be a great musician, start by writing some great songs. If you need a reference point, a dictionary definition of a great pop song, here are 12 of them.

#2. Beck, Sea Change.

The 11th hour surprise. Some thought that in my original review, I implied that Sea Change is soulless, but its penultimate position on this list should quell some of that noise. Beck simply falls into the standard trap all ironists find themselves in when they move to sincerity – there’s no trusting him. But whether he meant the sentiments on Sea Change or not is irrelevant when the music is this beautiful. Beck and supernaturally talented producer Nigel Godrich have crafted a dreamy masterpiece, a surreal and deeply moving record that leaves you emotionally drained. It’s easily the finest achievement of Beck’s career, and its commercial failure probably means that he’s fallen victim to Jim Carrey Syndrome: we only love him when he’s funny. It’s a shame, because Sea Change is compelling and powerful in ways his other records, no matter how brilliant, could never be.

And that leaves only one. I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now. There’s really only one choice.

#1. Christina Aguilera, Stripped.

Nah, I’m fucking with you.

#1. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

In hindsight, nothing else even came close. Wilco defied the odds this year, finally bringing their rejected child into the world, and we got to hear what executives at Reprise Records must have known: this album is a flat-out work of genius. How they could have ever thought anything else is beyond me. Many albums try for an effect YHF carries off effortlessly – it creates its own world and then makes you believe in it. More than any other record this year, YHF writes its own definition. It belongs to no category but its own. The genius of the album lies in the ebb and flow of its more structured pieces and its bursts of glorious noise, as tumultuous and fraught with possibility as everyday life.

Many artists tried this year to fashion music for a post-September 11 world, but only Wilco got it right – and with an album recorded before the attacks. YHF is a sonic mirror of the unpredictable, jarring, fragile and precious world we found ourselves in on September 12, and for that alone it deserves its many accolades. None of that would matter, however, if the songs weren’t extraordinary, and they are. This is the plateau Wilco have been striving for since Being There, and every minute of their struggle to see it released was worth it. The album and its attendant history can almost make you believe that truth will always out, and great music will always win.

So much to say here. Thanks to you all for coming along with me on this ride – not just the past 3100 words, but the past two years. Merry Christmas (to those who celebrate it), and I’ll catch up with you again in two weeks for Year Three.

“Music is the best.” – Frank Zappa.

See you in line Tuesday morning, and to all a good night.

Friday is my last day at work.

It’s also, for all intents and purposes, the last day of my life here in Indiana. I’ve been existing in a strange state of incompleteness, surveying everything and everyone around me and reminding myself that this isn’t my life anymore. As one door opens, another closes, unless you strain mightily against it, and after so many temporary lives, I don’t think I have the strength to strain as mightily as once I, perhaps, might have.

It’s only in goodbyes that people truly reveal what you’ve meant to them, and I’ve discovered over the past few days that I’ve meant at least something to quite a decent number of people here. I have, I think, accomplished what has always been the goal wherever I am, by doing more good than harm here. In a few rare instances, I’ve actually helped some people, I think, and when I reflect upon it, I’ve been helped more than once as well.

So I’m thinking about all this, this metaphorical death and rebirth, when I remember that this week is the 23rd anniversary of John Lennon’s death, and I realize that, speaking of dead Beatles, I haven’t talked about George Harrison yet. And it seems oddly, mystically fitting to review Harrison’s final, posthumous album as I’m taking stock of my own (admittedly small) legacy.

A posthumous album like Harrison’s Brainwashed, after all, is little more than a letter composed while you’re here, to be read after you’re gone. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately – writing letters I will only send after I’m gone, expressing important emotions to the friends I’ve made, and to the unattainable girl I’m hopelessly smitten with (as usual) – and while my truths are considerably less universal and impactful than Harrison’s final ones, the whole process leads me to wonder why we don’t just say what we feel when we feel it.

In a group in which each member was assigned a role and a personality by the mass culture, George Harrison got labeled as the Deep One. He was quiet and spiritual, decent and superbly talented, and if he shrunk from the spotlight as he got older, we didn’t mind, because he’d never craved it in the first place. Every Harrison song, every Harrison project, was a worthy investment of time and attention, and that’s partly why there were so few of them. More than a decade and a half has elapsed between Harrison’s last album, Cloud Nine, and this final one.

And again, we don’t mind, because George always had something to say, and each of his recordings feels as important to him as the best ones do to his more prolific bandmates. Harrison just never wasted our time. Brainwashed is another well-spent 45 minutes, and if Harrison was typed as the deep, spiritual one, then it only makes sense that his final album is his deepest, most spiritual statement of all. Brainwashed is almost entirely about ignoring the trappings of the world and giving yourself over to a higher spiritual presence.

Call that presence what you will. Harrison calls it God, repeatedly on the title track, which closes the album. Brainwashed is a record of goodbyes, but none of them are maudlin and depressing. In keeping with his spirit, Harrison has left behind one of his most uplifting and whimsical albums, one that nearly dances with glee at each new way it finds to celebrate spiritual awakening. Harrison was never about religion, as evidenced in his final swipe at the Catholic Church, “P2 Vatican Blues.” Rather, he was about reaching beyond yourself to find the greater beauty that awaits. He spent his whole life reaching for it, reveling in the journey and secure in the destination.

Musically, Brainwashed is about what you’d expect, and that’s a good thing. Harrison’s weary-yet-triumphant vocals sometimes clash against Jeff Lynne’s production, carried out after George passed, but contrary to some reports, Lynne actually is remarkably restrained here. The man for whom the word “posh” would had to have been invented, had it not previously existed, lets a surprising amount of roughness seep through here, and it’s appreciated.

It’s impossible, however, to objectively review this record as a slab of music, apart from the life and grace of its creator. You can’t listen to Brainwashed without thinking to yourself, multiple times, that this is the last George Harrison album, and you won’t be able to separate the emotions that flood in at that thought from the music itself. There are instant classics here, like “Run So Far” and the plaintive, haunting “Looking For My Life,” and the rest is as good as Harrison has ever been. Which is quite good.

For me, though, there is no more hopeful element to this work than the contributions of Harrison’s son Dhani, who completed several of the guitar and keyboard tracks after his father’s death. One can only imagine the difficulty of playing on one’s father’s posthumous record, and the reverence with which anyone else would approach this material, because it’s George, can only be amplified in Dhani’s case, because it’s his dad. The record closes with Dhani and George reciting the Krishna chant “Namah Pavarti,” together, father and son, and both sons to the Father. Whether you believe in Harrison’s more spiritual leanings or not, it’s an aching jewel of a closer because he believed in them, utterly and completely. It’s how I imagine him wanting to be remembered – a simple, peaceful man, praying with his son.

Without doubt, all of this real death puts my own metaphorical death into perspective, but I think Harrison would be pleased that I’ve taken some comfort in his final offering. “If you don’t know where you’re going,” he sings in the zen-like opener, “any road will take you there.” For the first time in a while, I don’t know where I’m going, but instead of choosing a road, I think I’m ready to let the road choose me. I will certainly miss this life, and I have no idea what’s awaiting me in my next one, but I think it’ll all be okay.

I’ve read about this somewhere. I think it’s called faith.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

There’s really nothing like live music.

In a world of dreary routine and scientific explanation for everything around us, you have no better chance of witnessing magic than at a live show. Sometimes the musicians don’t even know it’s going to happen, and those times are the best ones – when the sheer unexplainable power of music takes over and turns a song into a spiritual experience.

I’ve always loved live music, but I don’t get to see as much of it as I’d like. I find it’s refreshing to remind myself every so often that yes, actual living, breathing musicians do sometimes get together on stage and play. Not everything is as processed or computerized as any given 20 minutes of radio listening would have one believe. Just for that reassurance, I try to see as much live music as my schedule and finances will allow.

I recently saw a pair of shows that reminded me what it’s all about. One of them I alluded to earlier in the year – I said I wasn’t going to miss Ben Folds on his solo piano tour this time, and thanks to my good friend Jody, I didn’t. Ben had a fever of 102 degrees, he said, and he was sniffling and blowing his nose between songs, and he still played for two hours and 15 minutes. Now that’s a class act.

Speaking of class, Duncan Sheik opened the show with just an acoustic guitar and pal Gerry Leonard on e-bow. Surprisingly, he played a bunch of songs from his latest foray into pop-rock, Daylight, that held up marvelously in an acoustic format. I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that Sheik is about as popular as he’s ever going to get right now, which is a shame. The man has oodles of songwriting talent and deserves a long, label-supported career. Sadly, most of the audience seemed more interested in Leonard’s technicolor pants.

Folds was awesome. There’s very little else I can say about him that I haven’t droolingly said already. He’s everything that was ever good about Elton John mixed with a thoroughly modern sense of humor. I kept to the front and left, so I could study his hands as they danced across the keys, especially during “One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces” and “Philosophy.” He even played his just-released holiday romp, “Bizarre Christmas Incident,” which tells the sad yet inevitable tale of Santa’s last chimney dive: “Santa is a big fat fuck, came down the chimney, got his fat ass stuck…”

But the most surreal part of the night was to come. I had noticed on the way in that security was tighter than Greta Van Susteren’s new face, and wondered what was up. Lo and behold, former President Bill Clinton was there, and (get this) he jammed with Folds on Wham’s “Careless Whisper.” No shit. Bill fucking Clinton. I wanted to shout at the stage that I’d voted for him twice, but then I remembered the whole blowjob thing, and I kept quiet. (Just to prove it was really him, he reportedly spent the rest of the night hitting on Ben’s wife Frally.)

Folds closed with his new version of “Song For the Dumped,” almost exactly the way it appears on the Ben Folds Live DVD. Midway through, someone threw a black t-shirt on stage, and it took him a minute to get the joke. It struck me then that Folds should be (and probably is) grateful for the fans he attracts – you need to have a certain sophistication and attitude, I think, to be a Ben Folds fan, and that’s not easy to come by in this cookie-cutter, shake-your-booty processed music world we have now. May his tribe increase.

* * * * *

The other recent show was a lot more reminiscent of my Face Magazine days. Midwest Beat Magazine, which is so much like Face it’s almost scary, hosts a local music showcase each year at the famous Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville, and because I’m with the ever-popular media, I got to go and hear eight hours of new original music from 10 area bands.

I also got to meet the semi-famous Tom Lounges, publisher of the Beat, who was obviously separated at birth from my old editor, Bennie Green. They look alike, they talk alike, and they both have an incredible devotion to their respective local music scenes. Talking with Lounges was so familiar to me that I almost blurted out something about the Rolling Stones sucking ass since 1970, just because that would have gotten a rise out of Bennie. I miss you, Green.

Anyway, while most of the bands played some derivative or another (Eat a Peach took from the Allman Brothers Band, Eighty-94 took from every punk band ever, and Dank stole from Slipknot, for example), there was one group that stood out, one that melded their influences into something truly original. That band, the Bedheads, made me a fan for life in 25 minutes, and it will be interesting to see if their obvious talent and skill takes them beyond Indiana and into the rest of the world.

Lest you think I’ve given up reviewing new CDs entirely, the Bedheads have a new album that’s pretty damn good. It’s their second, it’s called Radio Alarm Clock, and it states the band’s case pretty comprehensively. Their first, Rise and Shine, is quite good as well, but bassist/singer/songwriter Lou Samaniego will readily admit that the songs on that one were written for a fully stocked studio, whereas Radio Alarm Clock captures the sound of a three-piece band playing almost entirely live. It’s a much more representative document of the band’s sound.

And what is that sound, you ask? Imagine King’s X meets the Plastic Ono Band at Geddy Lee’s house. The Bedheads use their trio lineup as well as Rush does, and Lou writes songs that are twisty, propulsive and mindbending. Take, for example, “Some Are Born to Take Apart the Universe,” with its impossible drum beat at the beginning (courtesy of Lou’s cousin Shane Samaniego) that slides perfectly into a 6/8 beat for the choruses. Or see “Movie Star,” with its Enuff Znuff-style melody that segues nicely into a middle eight worthy of Helmet. (It’s fun to watch guitarist Mike Ferri play this one.)

I don’t want to leave you with the impression that this is math-rock, though. The Bedheads write catchy songs, ones with melodies so hummable that they slyly disguise the more technical aspects of their stuff. There isn’t a dull moment on Radio Alarm Clock, which helps ease the pain of its tiny 33-minute running time. By the end of the sweet “Vertigo,” you’ll want to hit play again, and you’ll probably be as surprised as I am that record labels aren’t warring over these guys.

Support the band directly – go to www.yourbedheads.com to buy their discs. I should warn you that the Bedheads are a pretty low-rent operation at the moment, and both their albums come on CD-R with pretty cheap artwork. The music is so good that you won’t mind, though, trust me.

* * * * *

One more column before the Top 10 List. It’s gone through a few drafts, but I think it’s ready for its closeup. Next time, Phish, and probably a few also-rans.

One more time: “Santa is a big fat fuck…”

See you in line Tuesday morning.