Albums and Concerts

Laura Cantrell

• Not The Trembling Kind – Just a damned fine country record. They don't make them like this anymore, except they do, since this is only a couple years old, and she's got a brand new one coming soon, too.

The Ditty Bops

• The Ditty Bops (CD) – Their debut record is the best record of 2004.

Flying Lizards

• Fourth Wall – How do you follow up a record that's basically a prank on the record buying public? I don't know, either.

Mitchell Froom

• The Key of Cool – How about this one? Mitchell Froom's soundtrack to damned near the only halfway intelligent porn flick in history, Cafe Flesh.

Peter Gabriel

• Big Blue Ball – Seventeen years in the making, it's light-hearted compilation of the "Recording Week" musical festivals thrown by Gabriel's Real World Studios in the early 1990s. And it's a delight.

M: Not the French guy who did the music for The Triplets of Belleville, but Robin Scott. (That other M is pretty cool, too, but I'm still bitter that he stole his name…er, letter.) M's most famous for the song "Pop Muzik", but he put out 3 albums.

• The Official Secrets Act – the second album, which didn't do so hot. There seems to be a law that every record store has to have this LP for a couple bucks.

Sun Ra

• Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth – An essential introduction to the Man From Saturn. Make this your first Sun Ra disc!

U2: Yeah, I know – they're the biggest band in the world and they "sold out" back when they went mainstream with The Unforgettable Fire. Damn, I wish I could sell out the way these guys have!

• Pop – overhyped, overmerchandised, and you never hear it on the radio because everyone calls it U2's "worst" album. I still love it, and I think it's an interesting piece of musical satire.

Roger Waters: Pink Floyd and After Floyd, here is the man who made angst cool and whining about society into an art form.

• Amused to Death – Waters' solo masterpiece, ranking alongside The Wall.

Neil Young

• Trans – Neil Young's Electronic Album

Individual Songs:

• "Flowers On The Wall" - The Statler Brothers
• "I Wonder What She's Doin' Tonight" - Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart
• "Jo The Waiter" - Tubeway Army/Gary Numan
• "Leper In A Tumbledryer" - Ashfordaisyak (a/k/a Meadow House)
• "No Children" - The Mountain Goats
• "The Passenger" - Wall Of Voodoo
• "Pico and Sepulveda" - Felix Figueroa and his Orchestra
• "Too Much Time" - Captain Beefheart
• "Underneath the Jersey Sky" - Too Much Joy
• "Wichita Lineman" - Glen Campbell
• "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk" – Pet Shop Boys