Three dollars and 63 cents

from U2.com:

What a nice mix of songs. I really like the pairing of Thurston County and Build, and they played quite a few of my favorites. I think Something About David H. is one of their most powerful songs live. It killed me the last time I heard them play it, in Asheville last summer. I know Nels will be busy with Wilco a lot this summer, but I hope these guys can squeeze in a few short tours like they did last summer.

Me too. I'll try again this year if I remember, though.

They aren't a band I expect will ever change my life, but I enjoy listening to their CD while I'm doing housework. It's catchy. That's enough for me.

I've been Googling to see if there are any early reviews. I found this brief one atPrefix Who's my favorite sonic omnivore? Also, this one, forthcoming in Downbeat, posted on Cryptogramophone's page about the album: For anybody who's planning to order both his and Alex's albums, Crypto has a great deal--$15 apiece, plus $3.50 shipping. That's about what they'd cost from Amazon, and I like to think they get a little more back from the sale that way.

I hope he takes some time to get his head screwed back on straight and settles down a bit before he really commits to this decision. He's been so prolific over the last few years that he could very well just be burned out, and I can't blame him for wanting to disappear a little for awhile. I said it at the time, but I was really amazed when I saw the Cardinals back in September. When I last saw them, back in 2005, he was a complete mess and the show was awful. I can't believe how much more focused he was, and the performance was excellent, despite the fact that I didn't love either Easy Tiger

I love the opening of Sonic Youth's "The Sprawl"

I just added that to my "to read" list the other day based on how much I enjoyed Kitchen Confidential.

I'm going to be in town that weekend!

The Singers do a great version of Thurston County, so I expect they'll do that. I'm not sure if Nels will want to play any of the other songs with Scott and Devin, just based on what I've heard him say and have read about how deeply personal the album is. I think they might be recording a new album sometime this year, so they may have some new material to try out. Regardless, I have no doubt it will be a great show. Enjoy it!

I used that as a textbook for one of my classes a few years ago. We didn't read the whole thing, but some of the chapters we did read sparked great discussions. My students had a lot to say about the Britney Spears essay, for instance, and we talked about the McDonald's essays before and after we watched Super Size Me. Not my favorite Klosterman, but there are definitely some gems in there.

I'm trying to squeeze in as much reading as I can before I start teaching again next Wednesday. I finished the Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara this morning, after a solid month of reading some of it just about every day. After that I breezed through Frank Giampietro's first collection of poems, Begin Anywhere. I liked the conversational, accessible style, and the way he balances serious subjects with humor. I'd definitely recommend it. Now I'm working my way through Sascha Feinstein's memoir Black Pearls. There are a lot of layers, but he balances all of them perfectly. It deals with how he

I have a Scarnella show from '98 or '99 that I got from somebody I met at their show in Montreal last summer. It's tough to track down their live stuff, so I treasure it. The live/studio hybrid form of that Carla album seems to doom it to being spotty, unfortunately, but I do love that version of Times Square.

Not this time around. All the shows within four hours of me are on school nights

I found out about the deadline for the last round of proposals only a few days in advance, so I couldn't put anything together. At the time, I was also working on my dissertation, so I knew I couldn't start seriously thinking about another book project. I'd been kicking around some ideas for a book about YHF, but I'm glad I had the extra time to think about it. I remember you starting a thread about what a great candidate AGIB would be, and you really swayed me. There could be a great book about either BT or YHF, but it would be retreading familiar territory. I felt, from both a writer's an

The books that are accepted based on these proposals won't be published until 2010 and 2011, but I still think it's pretty bold to decide you'd like to write a book about an album you don't even know if you'll like! The editors usually base their decisions more on how the person pitches the idea rather than on the album itself, so anything is possible.

The 33 1/3 series recently had an open call for proposals, and they've posted the results today. There are a handful of proposals for Wilco or Wilco-related books--five for Wilco albums (two for YHF, and one each for BT, AGIB, and the new album), one for Mermaid Avenue, and three for Uncle Tupelo albums. They received several hundred proposals, but I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking it's high time they have a Wilco book in the series. Granted, I did submit a proposal, so maybe I'm a little biased Their blog is here. Check out the list of submissions and comment on which books you'd b

I don't think it will happen this year because they're going to be finishing the new album and gearing up to tour for that. I definitely think they'll do another residency somewhere at some point, but it seems like they're looking ahead right now rather than looking back.

The one thing I don't like about his collected poems is that it's not divided into sections by books and previously unpublished poems. Most collected and selected poems I've read have been divided that way, which makes it easier to go back to individual collections. A friend asked me to suggest some Frank O'Hara, and I had no idea what to tell him, since I wouldn't recommend a 500+ page collection to a casual reader. The Lunch Poems is the collection I hear mentioned most often, though. "The Day Lady Died" and "Why I Am Not a Painter" were the first two poems I ever read by him.

Red Headed Stranger is a pretty amazing album. Nels's work on "Just As I Am" is especially stunning, though I have to say that I prefer the Fibbers' version of "Hands On the Wheel" to this version. I was really skeptical of the album when I ordered it, since I love Willie Nelson and that's one of my favorite albums of his, but they handle it very well. It's both a tribute filled with care and respect and a bold reinvention of the original album. It was the first of Nels's work with Carla that I heard, and it made me start scouring ebay for what was out of print and ordering the rest. They've e

Mike Watt plays a few songs from the album and chats with Nels in the most recent episode of The Watt From Pedro Show. I haven't heard it yet, but I'm downloading it now. Edit: Watt plays Nels's songs at the end of the first hour and start of the second (including "Thurston County," which Nels was playing last summer while touring with the Singers). Nels calls in around the 2 hour 25 minute mark and talks for awhile, admitting that the concept behind the album is too deeply personal for him to talk about comfortably in public, and that he's been kicking it around for almost 30 years.

There have been some good suggestions, but your daughter will get more out of the assignment if she comes up with somebody herself (with your help if she needs it). If she's stuck, talk with her about her interests and what's important to her and work outward from there. Or maybe talk with her about the music she likes, and maybe work backwards and see what artists influenced the artists she likes. That will help to fuel her sense of curiosity more. It's very cool that you're so involved in her education

I think that's what I paid to see him in October. I chalked it up to everything being more expensive around here.

I'm getting ready to order a new computer, and I'm dreading transferring my iTunes library. The Apple website makes it sound like it's going to be easy enough to authorize my new computer so it can play the tracks I've bought, but I'm still going to back up everything.