On the short list of my favorite bands of the last 15 years is the American alt-country band The Old 97's. Too Far to Care, Satellite Rides and Fight Songs all are and were in heavy rotation in the Casa de Bedsitter. There were of course, better known and more respected bands in the genre, but the Old 97's (named after the song popularized by Johnny Cash "The Wreck of the Old 97") were probably more alt than country, and just appealed to me a lot more than the Uncle Tupelo crowd.

When Rhett Miller isn't fronting the band, he is furthering his solo career, releasing album #4 (self-titled) earlier this summer. Personally, I prefer the 97's. Miller still has the twang, but this album is more pop harmonies and less Americana rock. That's my bias (give me the West Texas twang), but if you haven't heard the Old 97s or Miller (and you're a fan of memorable pop rock) this might be be a good start.

It is Thanksgiving here in the United States (Thursday elsewhere). It's hard not to like Thanksgiving - American football and gluttonous dinners, without the whiff of commercialism associated with Christmas (though it is starting to seep in). Having a blog for many years, I think I have hit all the usual suspects - Burroughs' Thanksgiving Prayer, Alice's Restaurant and the Gobbledy Gooker.

What's left? Oh, yeah, this is a blog this is where I try to piss off my readers, so I'm going to quote Chris Jericho.

Thanksgiving....bah humbug! Too many holidays and days off in this country! Get back to work troglodytes...

By the way, why not associate the holiday with Jericho. He's up there with Billy S and Arlo. Here are some of my favorite Jericho moments.

Have some classic Iggy to tie you over until tomorrow.

For any American alternative teenager in the late 80s, there was a pantheon of British doom-and-gloom bands that included The Smiths, The Cure, Depeche Mode, and New Order.

Echo & The Bunnymen were second-tier. They weren't any gloomsters favorite band that I knew of. Sure, their compilation Songs to Learn and Sing was a must have, and a lot of us had Ocean Rain, but that was about where it stopped.

The thing is that if you're my age then the criticism is fair. The band's self-titled 1987 album was not Music for the Masses. "Lips Like Sugar" was no "Just Like Heaven". In those years, when those cult bands were making their big gamble on breaking through, The Bunnymen came up short in comparison. So, while The Cure and Depeche Mode sold out stadiums, and Morrissey was making his legend, Echo was breaking up, and all we got was Reverberation and a couple of unremarkable solo Mac albums.

It then seems like a bit of a shock as The Cure and Morrissey continue the long slog, even bringing in the guys who produced Slipknot and Blink 182 to shake things up, but come away with diminishing returns- it is McCulloch and company that have made a string of solid albums into the 21st Century. What Are You Going to Do with Your Life (from 1999) and 2005's Siberia rank with the band's best work.

Mac and co. just released album number eleven The Fountain. It's not the tour de force that I thought that Siberia was, but it should still please the fans. At the very least, the Bunnymen prove they can still hang with the generation that they inspired.

I don't know if I can say it better than Bill Maher, but I will quote him, the way the Democrats are going with this health care thing, I'm going to start going to Town Hall meetings to protest.

Everything about this has been wrong. The Dems are willing to do anything to get a bill passed, up to and including passing a bill that doesn't make anything any better. I don't know why the GOP won't pass the damn thing, it is as Maher says, a sloppy blow job to the health insurance industry.

First, the Dems started talking compromise even before the debate started. Worse still, pushing a de-toothed Health Care bill still hasn't won any GOP support. It doesn't make any sense. The public option constantly polls favorably, but the Dems are afraid to fight for it, because they are interested in trying to gain GOP voters, that aren't coming across the aisle regardless.

If the Dems lose in 2010 and 2012, it won't be so much because the GOP will be able to rally their base as much as the Dems pissing off their supporters.

Speaking of which, I had my first experience with socialized medicine in Massachusetts. I don't know that I understand it completely, and you're welcome to explain it to me.

First off, the Commonwealth pretty much tells you how much you're going to pay, as I understand it, at least for their public option that is offered to those lower on the economic scale. I do realize that is an area that I am unclear on, still I do know that if you don't make a certain amount, then Massachusetts picks up your bill. I am not sure how that sits with me, but I think you have to have those things in this scenario.

Here's where the fun comes in. Not only do you have to have insurance, you have to have insurance that meets the 'wealth's requirements. If you don't have insurance or your insurance doesn't measure up, then you pay a tax penalty when the year ends.

There is a part here where you have to be in a situation where you have insurance offered that meets the requirements. So, here is a scenario. You work for a company, and they, as is typical, may offer two or three plans. It is possible to sign for the cheap high-deductible plan, have paycheck deductions taken out all year, and then, come tax time, find out that it doesn't count as "insurance".

It is an interesting concept that not only you have to have insurance, you have to have good insurance. Bad plans that require high out of pocket payments or that have low benefit maximums and stop paying out pdq don't past muster. I think this is a good thing. If you're going to help fix the situation, then fix the situation.

It's still a lot to wrap your head around. I know that I walked away wondering if this is the best idea, but these are the decisions that had to be made (and lest we forget, passed by a Republican governor); and I have to admit I can't come up with any better ideas.

Was there a cooler artist in the mid-90s than the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

With the Pitchforked masses seemingly only interested in bands that sound like Grizzly Bear or the Arcade Fire, I was curious what Jon was up to.

He is fronting a band called Heavy Trash, and they just released album #3 Midnight Soul Serenade on Fat Possum Records.

They had done a pretty good job staying under the radar? So are they any good?

The answer is an empathetic "Yes". The Blues Explosion were great, but the problem was where they would go next. Heavy Trash sounds like the logical next step. It's a band that should appeal to JSBE fans, but doesn't really sound like them.

Heavy Trash is the JSBE as if they were played on your "good time oldies" station. "Jon Spencer fronting the Cramps (or Southern Culture On the Skids)" probably misses the mark, but is in the general vicinity. Any of the songs would not sound out of place on Nuggets.

This is a band that is well worth checking out. Also, worthy of note to some will be Men Without Pants, the new project of Blues Explosion drummer Russell Simins and Dan The Automater. They also have a new album which you can check out songs from here.

November is NaNoWriMo, which means if you are so inclined to pound out 50,000 words in 30 days, you are encouraged to. I won't be doing that this year. For supportive purposes, I plan on acting like a novelist (play the ponies, drink myself to death) without those pesky keyboards.

For those, who find that too hard, there's NaBloPoMo, where bloggers are encouraged to post every day. I have so far done this, but it's admittedly hard. Still, it beats writing Ulysses during your lunch break.

It would make sense that this would lead to the next step. That's right it's IComLeavWe. In the most basic terms, IComLeavWe encourages you to comment six times on internet blogs for a week.

Anyway, it's something anyone can shoot for until the next fad comes along.

I always suspect it was success that ripped Chris Isaak out of critical acclaim. While the indie/college crowd love anything 50's flavored (Tiger Army, ferchrissakes), they never embraced Isaak. He has a solid discography and Forever Blue is among the best discs of the last two decades.

I suspect it is the unhipness of having a worldwide smash song. If not then, it's probably because Isaak takes his inspiration not from Vincent and Cochran, but from Orbison. The success is not a bad thing, as it opened more doors from Isaak than had it not been there. He had a hilarious show on Showtime for a few years, roles in Bertolucci and Lynch films, and currently has a low-key interview show that is as enjoyable as any currently on the air.

I never did get to see Isaak live. There was always something (time, money, and someone to go with) and I was usually one or two of these short. Still, if any of my favorite artists is destined to go to Vegas or Branson, it's likely Isaak.

He really didn't have a bad album until 2002's Always Got Tonight which was a mis-step further into that Vegas/Branson area. Mr Lucky is the first album in 7 years (excluding a Christmas LP), and should please Isaak fans, and puts him back on track. Duets with Michelle Branch and Trisha Yearwood will mean the Pitchfork crew won't be impressed, and I would still point new fans to his mid-90s work, but there's no complaints from me.

Well, just over the halfway point on Movember. Our team has gathered $1100 in donations, and I even have my first benefactor. Like Tchaikovsky and Wagner, I have someone donating to support my art (growing facial hair).

So, the comments and comparisons are getting more interesting

-Keith Hernandez (which makes me think "Your stache is trash")
-Ron Burgundy (obligatory)
-Inspector Gadget (Gadget is clean shaven, so I think this was a tip to his inspiration, Inspector Clouseau).

Someone also said that before they heard about Movember, they thought my moustache was real. ("Uhhhh....).

I was also flirtily compared to Snidely Whiplash, and told that I should tie her to the railroad tracks, which iof course, is confusing the story of Dudley Doright, but I wasn't going to make that correction.

So, here's the stache:

There's no doubting that Keith Richards influenced rock, but one of his disciples Johnny Thunders took Keef to the next level. There is an entire genre of people who copied the Thunders sound, though I don't know what you would call it - "Sons of the Dolls" I suppose.

One wants to be careful glamorizing a junkie who it sounds like had all of the pains that went a long with it, and wasn't maybe a pleasant person to be around. It also shows in his lack of commercial success, as he bounced around from label to label, and saw others with less talent make a lot of dollars off his sound.

He was one of a kind, though, and really came across as someone who felt it. Trashy, snide, and reckless, but also heart-wrenching, vulnerable, and pensive. There are a lot of bands that owe a career to Johnny. There a re a lot of good punk bands and a lot of terrible glam bands (and sometimes, the same band- TSOL) that aspired to his heights (or lows, if you will).

Of the disciples, one of the people who carried the torch closest and made some good music was Nikki Sudden. Sudden came across as another tragic, doomed figure who felt too much, denied mainstream success, but leaving behind some gems while fronting bands like the Swell Maps, the Jacobites, and in collaboration with other artists.

Nikki passed away last year, and Golden Vanity is not recent material even if it is just hitting the shelves. It is an album Sudden recorded with Phil Shoenfelt in 1998, but was never released. That doesn't sound very promising, but it is a solid album. If you don't know Sudden, this album would probably be as a good one as any to start. All of Sudden's all-star influences are present - Stones/Faces/T Rex.

You know, I was born too soon.

I was a skinny, emaciated, overly sensitive pale teen . So at the time, it meant I had a handful of friends and spent Saturday nights at home. If I was that age and like that today, I wouldn't be able to answer all my voicemails for all the calls I would get.

This isn't a very cool answer, but hey I just take the quiz and report it, you decide.

You Are Edward Cullen

In general, you are an upstanding, ethical, and compassionate person. You aren't a stereotypical vampire. Of course, you're only undead, so you can't help but be tempted occasionally. You do a good job keeping your cravings in check. You are a true romantic, and you live to take care of your sweetheart. You couldn't go on if you hurt the one you love. You have many worries and conflicts deep in your heart. You may seem distant or cold, but it's only because you care so much.

The Rev. Horton Heat has been on the national scene for almost 20 years, and are on album number ten.

For someone who's been around that long with what could be considered a pretty basic gimmick, Heat has put out a pretty impressive body of work. It seems like when you think he's done all can, he turns the corner and releases another solid album.

Where similar artists would have stalled after the first two albums, I consider It's Martini Time and Spend A Night In the Box as continuing his strong body of work.

I would add Laughin and Cryin' with.... to this list.

It's gotten mixed reviews. The critics generally point out that they think Heat is just too novelty and his choice of songs are uninspired (a lot of songs about Texas). I would disagree. I think the performances are strong, and the Texas songs fit in well with his previous work.

In short, I think Rev fans will like it, and if you don't like it, you may be too serious for yer own good.

I know he's not everyone's cup of tea, but I'm a Bob Dylan fan. I've been lucky enough to see his Bobness twice.

Dylan has been a chameleon. I never did see I'm Not There, but even the most casual Dylan fans knows of several of his personalities.

You got to include the freewheelin' Zimmerman. There's the voice of his generation from Bringing It All Back Home, followed by post-motorcycle crash Dylan. The plaintive, reflective Dylan of Blood On the Tracks and the ragged, occasionally dark Dylan of the 21st century.

Dylan has proved he is still on top of the songwriter mountain in recent years. Still, I wasn't that interested in a Dylan Christmas album. I can't imagine too many people were.

Still, there is another Dylan. That is the Dylan I was first introduced to, and the Dylan that probably gets the least amount of respect. That is the manic Dylan of the 80s. The Dylan of "Political World" and Under the Red Sky. The Dylan that toured with Tom Petty and was a member of the Traveling Wilburys.

I don't know if that is the Dylan we get on Christmas In the Heart, but it is the one on the first single, a cover of Brave Combo's "Must Be Santa".

Yeah, I didn't expect much, but this may be the most awesome thing you see all year.

I used to make fun of Coldplay non-stop ("There was mustard on my hot dog, and it was all yell-low"). Then at some points, the pupils passed the masters, and they were doing a better U2 impression than the actual Dubliners themselves.

"Viva la Vida" is one of this generation's great pop songs. One should never underestimate the power of Eno.

A minor complaint. I never thought Chris Martin was the best choice to sing that song. He does a fine job, but for all of the world-weariness and ennui needed to pull those lyrics off, there could have been someone else.

Martin could be singing "I used to drive an Accord" for as much as he brings to the song. Bowie sounded like he was the man who sold the world, as did Cobain years later. For my money, Tom Petty captured perfectly the voice of "It's Good to be King", and the last few years of Johnny Cash's career, he used his voice to bring gravitas to pop songs. Even Coldplay's hero, Bono spent the 90s as the voice of the seen-it-all pop star.

We'll be stuck with Viva La Vida covers for years to come. Weezer's live version probably being the most well-known.

The most recent version to see the light of day is by the Pet Shop Boys, who in their fine tradition, merged it with their "Domino Dancing" for their Christmas EP.

I think it works. I'm not sure which I prefer, but the PSB's detached pop star delivery works. There's a lot of majesty in the world of Tennant and Lowe.

The studio version has been removed from the YouTubes, so you'll have to check out a live version (with requisite crown).

Literally half a lifetime away, punk rock icon Jim Damm christened me "the guy who likes surf music".

I have been called many things, I have embodied many things, but there might not be a better epitaph for me.

So, obviously, I am a big Man or Astro Man fan. Of course, I love all the classics and the newer wave (Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Los Straitjackets, Aqua Velvets- to name a few). I never could understand why MoAM? weren't bigger. Unlike the aforementioned bands, they made music that wouldn't sound out of place on FM radio.

They also seemed to be an obvious band to catch the years of the masses who like quirky rock. Artists like They Might Be Giants, Barenaked Ladies, and Weird Al Yankovic were able to take their geeky melodies to the masses. MoAM? always seemed just one soundtrack hit away from the big time. Instead, they mainly stayed a cult band known by hardcore indie fans.

So, while they don't attract the attention of the masses, it wasn't surprising that I hadn't heard of their side project Servotron. For two albums in the 90s, Servotron was "a collective unit of four robots dedicated to liberating computers, robots, and machines from human abuse and oppression, using the familiar form of a pop music group to attract and destroy all human life."

Pretty self-explanatory. MoAM?'s surf sensibilities, but this time with the emphasis on the robotic side of things. If I wanted to sell a dozen albums, I might say they're Pet Sounds meet OK Computer. That wouldn't be accurate, though. On the other hand, Jan & Dean meets Gary Numan....

I, for one, welcome our Robot Overlords

RIYL: Man or Astro-Man?, Braniac, Devo

I'm a big fan of the American garage rock of the 60s. I think bands like The Seeds, Count Five, The Electric Prunes, and the 13th Floor Elevators are simply awesome. It's clear to see where punk came from, and I can listen to these early bands all day.

Of those bands, though, if you would ask me where to start, there is no doubt - it's the Sonics. The Sonics just had it, and amazingly, the music sounds like it could be an Estrus or Crypt Records release from recent years.

Mark Arm and some other Seattle scenesters had a festival in 2000 where they reunited classic garage rock bands the Kingsmen and the Wailers. They however, were not successful in getting the Sonics back together. So, they took matters in their own hands.

The New Strychnines are three-fourths of Mudhoney with members of Gas Huffer and the Young Fresh Fellows. They released an album of Sonics covers in 2004, The New Original Sonic Sound. The Sonics did finally reunite in 2007 and have played a handful of shows since.

I would suggest hunting up Here Are The Sonics in whatever form you find it, but barring that (or maybe if you already have that disc), The New Original Sonic Sound should introduce you to a great unheralded band.

(Internet denizens: Strychnine drinking may cause death. This blog cannot be held responsible for your actions).

Chicken Nuggets baked in a pie. Grilled cheese with macaroni and tuna. A hot dog deep fried, wrapped in cheese and then deep fried again. A deep-fried spiral-cut potato encasing a strip of deep-fried bacon, served with brown sugar BBQ sauce.

Is this Heaven?

No, this is why yer fat.

Then chase it down with a Silly Putty shake (DO NOT DO THIS).

These are the kind of links my friends send me.

I knew Clash fans who hated Big Audio Dynamite. I liked them, and have most of their records. I think we knew all along their songs wouldn't age well (and they haven't), but credit to Mick Jones for helping us (samples, crossing genres, etc) get here from there.

In the final analysis, I think I can still put up a pretty good argument that BAD/BAD2/Big Audio were as good of a singles band as any in the past 25 years. They had a decent amount of success here (The Globe album was huge), despite being edgier than what usually got radioplay.

When Mick Jones had already been painted as the Paul McCartney (the pop one, not the intellectual one) of the Clash, Joe Strummer had made a comeback, finally making music on his own that approached the greatness of the band's, and then died too young. I think Macca gets treated unfair, and MJ does too, but it's an image he is stuck with.

After the break up of BAD, Jones has kept a slightly lower profile, but he has pushed his attention back to capturing some of that Clash sound, and championing/producing new artists. Carbon/Silicon is Jones's band with Tony James (of Generation X/Sigue Sigue Sputnik fame), the bassist from BAD Leo Williams and the drummer from Reef.

C/S as been as prolific as anyone (putting out at least four albums worth of material since 2006). Personally, they don't really push any buttons with me. It's not something that I would turn off it comes streaming on a playlist, but it's not something I would seek out. The critics have generally been positive, so I will leave that final decision up to you. The cool thing about C/S is that they have habitually shared all their new material for free on their website. It certainly is worth a cursory listen at that price.

When I sit down and put together my list of favorite artists, I would probably give Radiohead short shrift. This would be unfair, though, when I put it in perspective. There's probably not many more artists in the last 20 years that I find have put out more consistent work than Radiohead. Certainly, I can't think of too many bands that have been as consistent (even long-time favorites of mine like U2 and The Cure would fail).

Like many fans, OK Computer won me over, but Amnesiac, In Rainbows, and The Eraser would all be on the short list of my favorite albums of the last decade.

Radiohead recently released a new song, but were soon quick to announce that they were going in hiatus. We also got a double-sided single from Thom Yorke (written with Johnny Greenwood). All of this followed up with news, that no, indeed we would see new work from Radiohead in 2010.

Radiohead's single and Yorke's double side make me think of where music is headed. I know some of you have already discussed this, but I got to wonder if the album is dying. That is the general consensus, but I can't get my head around it.

Sure, I'm deep into analyzing music, but I think even the casualest of my generation think in terms of albums- don't even have to go back to Sgt Pepper's, Led Zeppelin IV or The Wall, you just need to go back to Nevermind, Jagged Little Pill, and Metallica's Black Album to name a few.

I still like to think of albums in the terms of having the songs be part of a collection. Even, if you are not buying the album in a physical format, I like to think of albums as a whole.

I must realize that this may not be what the average music shopper thinks. Are they concerned with Kristinia DeBarge, Cobra Starship, or even Britney Spearas fully-recognized artistic statement. Do people want a collection of Asher Roth songs or do they want just that song about college?

It doesn't help that my generation thinks of albums as things that have one or two good songs and a bunch of filler. So, the death of albums is inevitable. People will continue to download and look forward to the next Taylor Swift single, but they will no longer line up at midnight for the disc.

I would like to think of the bands I like (who I consider to be above the whole thing) to continue to look at putting together albums, but I can still see where even now, we are probably headed to the five song EP, as opposed to the 13-song album.

Bands are going to want to keep putting out music, and fans hearing it, so I can't imagine we still won't get songs released in collections, but who knows? We even now seem to have bands leak a song at a time. Maybe, it is already happening.

While I am rifffing here, now also seems to be the time to bring up the fact that those who are illegally downloading (and the proclaimed enemies of the music industry) are the ones who are still spending the most money on music.

Anyway, that's a post for another day. Back to the original point.. Thom Yorke has two new songs available for download (neither one are particularly worth repeated listens IMHO) and Radiohead has a new song available for free on their website, and you can listen to it below.

Turn of the Century by Kurt Andersen. This book gets a lot of comparison to Tom Wolfe and and his Bonfire of the Vanities. It's been a few years since I read Bonfire, but I really liked it, and am a big fan of Wolfe. Turn... got some good recommendations and user reviews on Amazon peg it as a book that people either love or hate (a good sign, I think). It puports to do what Bonfire does except for the internet generation.

I don't want to turn anyway from this book, but it just wasn't for me. On the positive side, Andersen is a pretty readable writer. I thought about giving up halfway through, but decided to stick it out. His writing is compelling, but there just isn't much there. There doesn't seem to be any action in the is almost 700 page book (probably twice the size it needs to be) until the last 100 pages or so (and then, it seems too contrived).

The characters are developed well enough, but the reader is never sure whether they should love them or hate them. They are generally not sympathetic enough to love; nor, despite that they are written as "rich people with problems", they are not particularly worthy of our resentment either. Is the book satire? Is it slice of life? I was never sure.

The book, now a decade old, may have lost its spark in that it is Andersen's mediation on where media is going, and in ten years of outrageous reality tv, we are almost there. Though a book that is trying to be edgy may not always age well, Turn doesn't sound any different in 2009 than it probably did in 1999 (the occasional references to vcr's and celebrity guest Phil Spector excepted). This is where the book works. It strives to be Bug Jack Barron without the sci-fi stuff.

Andersen tries to capture the present atmosphere (and near future) of media, technology, and finance. The media stuff is great, and Andersen will throw out some ideas that you could just picture Fox pitching for next season. The technology stuff is okay. It still reads up-to-date, although in 2009, some of the discussion on things like "hacking" aren't as exciting as maybe they were intended. The finance stuff is probably actually given more gravitas after the recent Financial Market shake-up.

A lot of promise here, and it is Andersen's first novel. Some may like it, but I may hold off on his work for awhile.