Boz Scaggs' Publicist: Hey Boz Scaggs, I think you should get a MySpace.
Boz Scaggs: OK. All these young people are gonna get hip to "Lido Shuffle."

We live in a strange world, a world in which Boz Scaggs has a myspace. He's hittin all the major markets/retirement hotspots on a summer tour entitled "The Hits" with James Hunter. Maybe I'll get tickets to the Boston show for Pops for Father's Day or something. By the way, James Hunter is actually pretty good at the white-man-soul thing.

What's the Story, Wishbone? Volume One.
Please watch this first to get in the wish-zone.

This week: "Shakespaw" featuring Shapes and Sizes
David tries to remain calm at the center of the storm when problems plague his direction of "The Tempest," by William Shakespeare. In the play, Prospero directs the events on an island assisted by Wishbone as Ariel.

This was an unusual Wishbone - "The Tempest" doesn't have any obvious contemporary-sitcom-ish plot reflective of the original - so the writers just had David direct "The Tempest." This can initially come off as a transparently lazy cop-out by Mo Rocca (yes, Mo Rocca wrote Wishbone) but he made sure that it had all the drama of Shylock's version. David's self-confidence issues really take center stage. Wishbone's running around as always making snarky comments and being unproductive, and in the Shakespeare he plays an androgynous dog-spirit that can teleport. God bless American public television.

Equally sexless, Asthmatic Kitty's Shapes and Sizes is a wonderful indie-rock four-piece from British Columbia. Caila Thompson-Hannant and Rory Seydel split vocal duties down the middle, so there's really no subconcscious gender-identification. Caila being the dramatic and lovable one, Rory a little more matter-of-factly. Their songs are long, busy, and sometimes duplicitous - they are apt to turn a track on its heels and send it in the other direction. The droning of woodwinds add that little bit o' depth and intrigue. Imagine that Elf Power was thrown into a Fiery Furnace. They swung through Rochester in March, so they probably won't be here for another fourteen years, but hey, a kid can dream.

Here they are with their own little two-act number about trouble surrounded by water on all sides, Island's Gone Bad.

POINT-COUNTERPOINT - LEKMAN, JENS.

Genius? Or is this just how the Swedes are built? Our paralegals examine the evidence.

POINT. Jens Lekman is a boy wonder. Contradicts the notion that "they don't write 'em like they used to." Lekman takes a few of old toys he found laying around the house - easy-listening's conventions, pop's bounce, and his own nostalgic wit - winds them up, points them in the direction of each other, and we all get to watch them collide. He proves equally competent writing songs for guitar ("I Saw Her At The Anti War Demonstration," also featuring a little bit 'o strings), for keys ("If You Ever Need A Stranger"), and for both (the utterly incredible "Black Cab").

COUNTERPOINT. Sweden is a nation of boy wonders. They have about nine million people living there now, making it a bit smaller than the state of Michigan. It's commonly said that they rank 3rd in the export of music, behind the US and the UK. Per capita the statistics must be disgusting. Sweden practically invented modern American pop music in absentia (see: ABBA). Listen to "I Saw The Sign" right now, I dare you. Is it the hyperneutrality that bores them into writing all them hooks in a basement? Or is it their socially-engineered problem-vacuum of a nation? I don't know, but to say Jens is an exception among Swedes would be off the mark.

No matter where you fall on that particular issue, I think you'll agree that Jens Lekman stopping in Rochester is cause for celebration. You can catch him at the Bug Jar on July 23 for $8, a steal of a show. Secretly Canadian labelmate Frida Hyvonen will open.

I know this seems cocky, arrogant, etc. but I am going to be the pretentious jerk and say it: there exists a song that is the greatest of all time. It's got the Muhammad Ali of melodies. Its lyrics make Hamlet look like Rent. It was produced by a robed Brian Wilson in a Buddhist temple high atop a peak, while George Martin shouted suggestions and shaved his head. When the Greeks defeated the Persians at Thermopylae, they were playing this repeatedly on the stereo. Save this for the wedding night, fellas.


This is the kick-off to a series of sorts (we'll see how long it lasts). I will take a descriptive blurb for an episode of Wishbone and somehow link it to great music of all types, brand new or classic.

There once was a time when man could transcend his mortal condition - he could reach for those proverbial stars, or just try to sleep with as many lady-fans as possible. Man was still allowed to smoke on the MTV. More accurately, there once was a man who lived his life to the fullest. No one doubted his brilliance, because no one else came close.

His name was Vangelis.

Shine on, you crazy diamond.

I feel like I owe Smog (aka Bill Callahan) something just for hanging around long enough for me to grow into their music. When 1996's The Doctor Came At Dawn was released, I believe I was 10. AND A HUGE SMOG FAN. No, absolutely not, I was 10. But as recently as 2005 's A River Ain't Too Much Love, Smog has released new material. There are oh so many bands that I wish were still around (Throwing Muses - please tour). And this one is!(?) The Doctor Came At Dawn is still my personal favorite - Jay-Z has nothing on Bill's 4,000 problems on "Four Hearts In A Can." And on top of that, a bitch is each one. As you could guess the man is pretty brooding. He's also a wonderful wonderful songwriter, and doesn't shy away from simultaneous musical understatement and lyrical overstatement. Domino Records has posted some tracks from his latest album - tidbits here.

I feel like I should add that I "got into" music extraordinarily late. The prime reason was that in sixth grade I didn't want to ever disagree with my peers and didn't know whether I should like the Beastie Boys or shouldn't like the Beastie Boys. I didn't want to pick what wasn't cool by accident. It took the entirety of middle school to get over this fear and turn on the radio for myself.

I also wasn't afraid of aliens because I was completely convinced that I could talk them out of whatever they wanted to do to me/my civilization.

Out of nowhere, it turns out that the writers of '90s teen drama My So-Called Life listened to some seriously good music. Music From the Television Series My So-Called Life was found for $2 at the Record Archive on East Ave. Well apparently $2 can buy you tracks by Juliana Hatfield, Buffalo Tom, The Lemonheads, Archers of Loaf, the Afghan Whigs, Daniel Johnston and a little band known as SONIC YOUTH.

Coincidentally, some of these guys are makin headlines today, and with a little help from MySpace (of which I am not a member for no explicable reason) I will share their music.

Greg Dulli, formerly of the Afghan Whigs, is out to make cocaine hip again by releasing Powder Burns as the Twilight Singers. On behalf of our generation, thank you Greg Dulli.

Daniel Johnston is not only a subject in my previous entry but is also a Hollywood hit! The Devil and Daniel Johnston is winning all sorts of olive branches and critic's palms and things. His MySpace is only valuable insofar as he has for all intents and purposes no friends. However, here is a massive video of Daniel playing the Bug Jar, putting on a great show, and then being interviewed by a well-meaning puppeteer who is seemingly oblivious to the fact that Daniel is brilliant and thus inpenetrable to normal conversation and on another plane entirely.

Sonic Youth used to be a great rock band. And apparently they still are. Also of note: Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth is a Rochester native. Something feels inherently wrong in linking to MySpace in the context of Sonic Youth so here is a track from their new album Rather Ripped available on cred-less Geffen Records. Come on, they signed their own daughters to a deal. But i'm down with what thurston and co. are still doing.

Buffalo Tom are still alive, still in Boston. What I would give to be in Massachusetts from the mid-eighties to mid-nineties. Oh wait, I was. I wait, I was a child and if I was into Wolf Colonel and Sebadoh that would just be WEIRD. Anyways, MYSPACE, GO!

Daniel Johnston once wrote a song called "Go". It is, first off, adorable. I'm gonna go out on a limb and call this a "self-consciously imperfect masterpiece. " And I am not really sure what that means. Daniel Johnston has this weird ownership of songs unique to himself... each one can be played by just him on a stage with one instrument. One minute you think "no one else can pull this off-" - and next thing you know Sparklehorse and the Flaming Lips are pulling "Go" off right in front of your ears. Also, a Welshman made a video for "Go" available on YouTube.

The Apples (in Stereo) once wrote a song called "Go". These guys know pop music, and "Go" is no exception. It's a delight. You can find it on their album The Discovery of a World Inside The Moone which came out on spinART. You can find a video of my favorite song of theirs, Ruby, live at Desdemona, on YouTube.

Moby once wrote a song called "Go" and all of a sudden people started caring about him, and next thing you know he's in a tiff with eminem. Once again, take it away YouTube - Moby's "Go."

we gots snowfall in the triple digits.

dirty on purpose has posted an entire live show from boston (also my city of birth... swell town) AND they have put out a quite-good new album, Hallelujah Sirens, on North Street Records. Very reminiscent of those product-of-New-Zealand Flying Nun bands, and specifically the Bats/the Clean. Indie rock on the lighter side, done right.

"Lake Effect" is my personal favorite (not in the live set, sorry), it's got that pining violin; skimpy, sad-but-not-sappy piano, and actively encourage citizens of my fair city (albeit non-specifically) to leave for more moderate climes. It's not our fault Lake Ontario bullies us with frequent "squalls" (what makes a snowstorm a squall? better yet, how can I earn the title of "squall"?).

"The larger cities in the region with a significant fetch when the wind is from the west are Akron (47"), Cleveland (61"), Grand Rapids (71"), London, Ontario (83"), Buffalo (96"), and Rochester, New York (100"). "
-from "The Straight Dope," an educational website that apparently thinks it's cool.

The Mae Shi

Are you a schizophrenic that is happy for no reason? The Mae Shi feels your pain, and they have written some music specifically for you and that adorable Russian child dressed as a scarecrow that follows you around but nobody else can see. If you don't like it, at least pretend you do so as not to hurt their feelings. But I certainly do.

The great tragedy of The Mae Shi is that they were ten years late for a sweet spot on the Streetfighter soundtrack.

Their split with Rapider Than Horsepower is out on Strictly Amateur Films Records (films records?). "Rapider Than Horsepower" reminds me of that "faster miles per hour" line from the Modern Lovers' song. Which is a problem because that Jonathan Richman is awesome and Rapider Than Horsepower is not Jonathan Richman. i.e. not awesome. Not terrible, not awesome.