Morning, luvs. It's a few days from 2006, and I'm drinking my first cup of coffee and counting my blessings after a year of loss, longing, and tons of bright spots that I make damn sure I don't forget. At the moment I'm listening to Uncle Tupelo's "Give Back The Key To My Heart" and trying to giving thanks for all sorts of things. I love writing about music; this blog has been one of the best things to happen to me this year. I hope you're digging it.

Among other things, it's helped me discover new music, which, as always, means I've discovered new portals to myself and the world, even though I admit I sometimes have to take a break from all the from-the-heart stories, all the big-picture philosophy, summaries, sermons, sadness, glee. In those times, I need to burrow in for complete quiet, away from all that to-the-boneness.

So why keep doing it? Why keep listening, and so intently, and writing about it? Simple. It's like email, or phone calls to people who've either stayed in or fallen out of your life; to share and share alike and to stay connected -- not just to my peeps, but to strangers, lovers, haters, and auld acquaintances unforgotten. Master of the obvious here, maybe, but I'm gonna have another cup and get all eulogy on you and talk about what I came here to talk about: musical mentors.

My older brother Jay, of course, was the classic mentor. His bedroom was filled with great records, and while he was working or going to the bars, I was locked in his bedroom, listening to vinyl on headphones. I'd be hard-pressed to name a better New Year's Eve than the one I spent all by my 15-year-old self in that bedroom, listening and writing in my journal until four in the morning.

My younger sister Molly has some of the greatest old-school taste you'll ever want to hear, and my younger brother Terry and his heart-of-gold passion for songwriters, bands, and the communal life that happens with live music has been equally instructive; he and his band are a jukebox that brings comfort and joy to anyone lucky enough to stumble on the party.

Yes, my fellow saps and aural-fixated suckers, I'm feeling grateful today. Mentors, teachers, there's too many name. They've come in the form of critics, fans, record store gurus, writers, deejays, musicians, bloggers, films, books, and fellow mix-makers, all of whose words, opinions, and love can enter me with the drop of a note, and put me at their side. Rodney Bingenheimer pretty much nailed it for me when he said he listens to music because "it makes me happy." I would add that "it teaches me" and "it makes me realize that whatever I'm going through, no matter how archaic or seemingly rare, there's a song for it, which proves I'm alive and not alone."

I'm sure some make fun of me behind my back for writing stuff like that, because we here in the persnickety prairie don't cotton too well to all that fooking Irish-ass bald-faced sentiment. I don't blame you, I guess; I'm guilty of some of the same suspicions about myself, because I've been trying to get a handle on it, The Big It, publicly for so many years, and it can drive a guy a little nuts. I also understand why passion or enthusiasm can get dismissed as shtick or self-parody, but I don't care. The shit still moves me like nothing else.

Lately I've been enjoying talking, casually, to old-timers about their memories of the Minneapolis underground. We've all reached an age where we appreciate what happened, and so we've been trading stories -- almost coincidentally; unplanned, unabashed and unembarrassed -- about different characters, stores, practice spaces, gigs, clubs, and the secret histories of the beginnings of what we now call the Twin Cities scene, most of which has never been written down. (Hmmm... I wonder what a new song recorded by these guys might sound like?)

Maybe it's because Karl Mueller died this year. Maybe it's because the Musicapolis exhibit sparked a brief window of nostalgia for an era that was fiercely anti-nostalgic, but nonetheless continues to reverberate. All I know is I'm not taking much for granted these days. Here's a great piece from the L.A. Weekly from a few years ago that I saved; it still sings today.

All of which is to say I'm determined to continue counting my blessings -- which I suppose has been a theme in my writing since the start; it would be a relief if I could finally quit writing about it and just do it, whether it be my luck to find myself coaching a bunch of great kids in basketball, or that I get to write for a living, or the fact that I have all sorts of love in my life, or the fact that people are listening to, discussing, and making music more than ever, which can only be good for this fucked-up world.

Now everyone go get T. Rex's "Life's A Gas" and Macy Gray's "When I See You" right now or this is what will happen.

Weirdly, so many of my musical mentors these days are (much) younger than me, because, for the most part, they're the ones who have kept listening. Then again, there's people like my friend Susan, who's around my age and who said her book club recently morphed into a music club for a night, in which they each brought a couple tracks to play for each other. This is what they came up with:

Linda

"Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," Cole Porter. "In Love Again," Stacey Kent. "Everytime We Say Goodbye," Silje Nergaard; "Everytime we say good bye, I die a little..."

Jo

"Ramblin' On My Mind," Robert Johnson

Kimberly

"Here Comes The Sun," Richie Havens.
April

"Gorecki Symphony III," London Symphony. "Cvaldo," Bjork.

Peggy

"Se ilden lyse," Sissel Kyrkjebø. "The song is from 1994 and is a love song between people and with the Norwegian land. It is also cleverly disguised as an invitation to the Olympic Games. A lot can be read into the lyrics and the English translation does not do the song justice."

Ann

"The Rising," Bruce Springsteen, and "My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors," Moxy Fruvous.

Maelene

"Duvemala Hage" and "Min Lust Till Dej," from the musical "Kristina Fran Duvemala." "The music is by Benny Andersson and the words are by Bjorn Ulvaeus (both of ABBA fame)."

Marianne

"Imagine," John Lennon, "Shelter From the Storm," Bob Dylan, "Gettin' Ready," the Temptations.

Susan

"The Wheel," Rosanne Cash, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow," Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, "Extraordinary," Liz Phair.

* * *

So, yes. I'm thankful for them, and others. Conrad may have said it best in accepting his Minnesota Music Hall Of Fame award at the Minnesota Music Awards this year, something about how lucky he feels to work at a place and live in a town where people actually go out and pay money to hear live music.

Count me in. I'm particularly grateful for ravenous musicheads Jon Hunt and Diablo Cody (above), this week's guest Walshfilers. They're a husband-wife team, and what follows is a beautiful duet. Take it away, lovebirds:

1. "Chinese Rocks," Richard Hell. When I tire of baroque flourishes, synth bleeps, ABBA samples and other affectations of modern rock, I cue up this nostalgic palate cleanser. Ugly guitars, Hell's adenoidal whine, and straightforward lyrics about selling your "best things" for heroin are as comforting to ex-punks as mac n' cheese. "Boy the way the the Voidoids played…songs that made the Hit Parade…those were the days!" (DC)

2. "Hazel Eyes," The Darkness. I'm sorry, the Darkness are great. No -- no, you misheard, I didn't say "the worst band in the history of mankind," believe it or not, I said they're great. And I'm not even saying that "ironically" or "sarcastically" -- I understand that there's a layer of joke, and above that a layer of earnestness, and above that another layer of joke, and then possibly topped off with a nice whipped topping of "we mean it, man," but I don't care. There's a way of looking at their music where its just the coolest, most fist-pumping-est hard rock that anyone's done since grunge supposedly did away with this style of metal. "Hazel
Eyes" is the ponciest tubthumper all year, and if the chorus to this song fails to move you, you need to put away the Arcade Fire records, dig up a couple old Van Halen records, and rediscover why it is you listen to rock music again. (JBH)

3. "Jesus was a Crossmaker," Judee Sill. The obscure, now-deceased Sill sounds eerily like Liz Phair to these ears. Her tomboy twang and excellent songcraft are addictive. (DC)

4. "The Blues are Still Blue," Belle and Sebastian. In which the Scottish wimpsters find their inner glam-rockers. Over a shuffle lick that would do Slade proud, Stuart Murdoch spins a sardonic tale of reuniting with his woman, and how, when he does, he's likely still gonna be pretty damn depressed, all told. Far from sounding dour, however, he sounds pretty damn sexy -- and yes, that's possibly the first time the word "sexy" has been used in conjunction with Belle and Sebastian who are usually the ultimate Record Shop Guy band, but this time they muster it. He purrs the damn song, and the rest of the band manages to buoy him up with some gorgeous confectionary harmonies. Even people who hate B&S have liked this when I've played it for 'em. PS: yep, its off their as-yet-unreleased album, but its out there. You know what I mean. (JBH)

5. "Dance Dance," Fallout Boy. A few zillion iTunes customers can't be
wrong. Fallout Boy are never quite as awesome as I want them to be, but this song nudges greatness. (DC)

6. "Something in 4/4 Time," Daryl Hall. This one is just plain batshit crazy. A friend of mine in England sent this to me -- this is off his "Sacred Songs" LP, which was produced by Robert Fripp. Yes, THAT Robert Fripp, King Crimson guitar wizard, and yes, it absolutely sounds like it. Forget everything you think you know about Daryl Hall, except the bits about how freaking great his voice sounds even on the most dire '80s song you can think of -- this is one of the strangest
songs you'll hear thisyear. It veers between sounding like prime-era Billy Joel to sounding likea very Berlin-ish Bowie to sounding like, well, King Crimson, especially on the cryptic, modal guitar break. It's pop, but its the kind of angular pop that would evolve into New Wave in just a few years' time. The entire album is just this odd, an avant garde blast from a guy whose career could have gone entirely differently. (JBH)

7. "First-Time Mother's Joy," Mercury Rev. I don't normally listen to music this aggressively gentle (oxymoron?) but Mercury Rev is like a cup of warm Ovaltine after an afternoon astride the toboggan. (DC)

8. "The Lamb Ran Away With The Crown," Judee Sill. Discovering Judee this year was absolutely a revelation. She combines pretty much all my musical genres of interest: country, folk, chamber pop, sunshine pop -- and does so with a sort of emotional weight that eludes even some of her most accomplished contemporaries. "Lamb" is Judee to the max -- a lilting melody, an incredibly dark and surreal lyric that hints at deep, unresolved demons, baroque instrumental breaks, a delicious arrangement and a gorgeous stacked harmony choir at the end. This is one of those mystifying records that makes you wonder what's so god-damn wrong with the world that kept this from being a massive worldwide hit. In an alternate universe, she has Joni Mitchell's career. (JBH)

9. "White Houses," Vanessa Carlton. This breathless single from Carlton's flop Harmonium is staler than a McDonald's crouton. I think it was released like, a year ago. And yet, I suspect the rich man's Michelle Branch didn't get a fair shake the first time out. In this climate of antiseptic Lohan-pop, Carlton plays con brio. Not only does this song have the energy and panache of an early Billy Joel hit, the lyrics were honest enough to get censored by MTV. (Carlton wasn't allowed to say "blood" in reference to losing her virginity.) (DC)

10. "Chicago," Sufjan Stevens. I feel like the last guy on earth to discover Sufjan. It's like there was this really great party and I arrived only after all the beer had been drunk and half the crowd had passed out. Nevertheless, this song knocked me for a loop the first time I heard it. I was kind of idly flipping through the record in someone else's iTunes queue at work, and working while I was going, and then BAM! Like a bolt out of the blue, straight to the heart. I'm pretty sure there were a few tears welling up. I remember going back and listening again, to make sure I was really hearing what I was hearing, and then again, and then again. I remember smiling broadly and emailing everybody I knew to tell them how they needed to buy this right away. And even still the part where he talks about crying in the van with his friend for freedom hits me like
a ton of emotional bricks. (JBH)

11. "All I Want for Christmas is You," Mariah Carey. In the year of the Mariah comeback, who can resist this evergreen? Y'all can laugh, but M.C. is so convincingly ebullient on this track that few can resist it. (DC)

12. "Blue Monk," Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane. This is from that newly discovered "at Carnegie Hall" concert, and wow, what a stunner. For non-jazz-fans, its like this: imagine that the very best Beatles record of all time, better than White Album, better than Sgt. Pepper, has been sitting in a vault in the basement of Abbey Road with a label on it that says "record." A staggering, magnificent album, and this song boasts possibly the greatest Coltrane solo of all time. I'm sure somebody would like to beat me up for saying that, but there it is. (JBH)

13. "Jingle Bells," Esquivel. More random zoots and dweets than you can shake a candy cane at. Refreshingly un-Christmasy! (DC)

14. "The Four Horsemen," Aphrodite's Child. The best thing about running an "obscure 60s music" website is that people constantly send me some of the most absolutely insane music ever made, knowing full well that I'm going to freak out over it. Aphrodite's Child were a Greek psych/prog band from the early 70s, featuring as their main member one Vangelis, later the author of the stirring and much-parodied "Chariots of Fire" music. This ain't no new wave, though. Its a freaky-to-the-core concept album about the book of Revelations featuring appropriately apocalyptic and powerful music. Track it down. Its literally like nothing you've heard. (JBH)

15. "Out Tonight," Rent Original Broadway Soundtrack. I haven't heard the new movie version sung by Rosario Dawson, but the old-skool 1996 recording always prompts me to strike ridiculous feline poses and meow like a tabby in heat. Too bad I don't live "in a city of neon and chrome." More like Freon and snow. Or something. (DC)

16. "I Found Love," the Free Design. A meaningful find for me this year was the Free Design, a band so impossibly good I can still hardly believe they exist. My wife finds them horrifyingly twee, but there's something about the delicate sweetness of their music that tugs that one particular heartstring reserved for Stuff I Used To Love As A Child. "I Found Love" is so fully the great lost song of the 60s. Lilting and sweet, every bit as delicious as those first few moments of being in love, or the way a smile looks on a child, or the way dandelion fluff blows in the wind, and no, I am not kidding. If you haven't treated yourself to the Free Design yet, do yourself a favor. (JBH)

17. "Luxurious," Gwen Stefani. This unabashed "Big Poppa" biter scrolls through my head at maddeningly frequent intervals. Best lyric: Old-fashioned girl Gwen includes "growing old with hubby" on a list of her most-coveted luxuries. Hey, who sneaked family values into my empty ode to materialism? (DC)

18. "What A Wonderful Man," My Morning Jacket. I spent so long hating My Morning Jacket for being second-rate Neil Young rip-off artists that I failed to notice them morphing into the blasted Flaming Lips. The entire "Z" record, produced magnificently by John Leckie, is a killer psych-pop slab, but this song is just a stone blast. Fun, loud, dumb and absolutely melodic. Who the hell knew they had it in 'em? (JBH)

19. "Beat of My Heart," Hilary Duff. Ignore the fact that the melody is comically simple and the lyrics are unbelievably repetitive. This song is really quite brilliant in its crudeness. Take a shot of apple Pucker every time Hil says "beat" and you'll be bound for the ICU in no time! (DC)

1. "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child," Louie Armstrong. Some days more than others.

2. "Western Skyline," Richmond Fontaine. There was blood, and glass... but that's not where the story ends.

3. "Orphan Girl," Gillian Welch. Shh, baby. Listen. A whisper-twang from a motherless/fatherless/siblingless heroine who reminds all would-be lost holiday souls, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

4. "The One," Oh Susanna. Depending on when it hits you, this is either a declaration of buried love, a melancholy melodrama on the miracle of unlived lives (i.e., the female Brokeback Mountain), or a fixed-stare prayer that concludes, "I won't let go of your beating breast till the world decides that it's time I rest/And through the night of deepest black, I will walk beside the one who brings the light."

5. "The Christmas Song," The Raveonettes. Seems like everyone I know wants to quit their job, start something new, find that perfect oasis where they're understood and given the freedom to explore their organic gifts, their hidden talents, their true genius, and are provided with a canvas on which to bestow their pearls of wisdom without having their fragile spirit and ideas crushed at every turn. Then there's this, and all those wanderlusty bells, and all the pagan-ritual lights on the trees and houses, and all that beautiful mistletoe and snow, and that's all she wrote.

6. "p.s.," Film School. A lazy-taut organ, a lolling snare, a Velvets riff, and a poet's out that insists, "Don't confuse me with my confessions."

7. "Hippy Hippy Shake," The Beatles. Tough to pick one highlight from First Avenue's 35th anniversary bash--Craig Finn riffing on John Berryman ("Washington Avenue Bridge," anyone?) and cameoing with the Doomtreers and Jessy Green; the Mofos and Rifle Sport holding court in the Entry with old-school impudence; the dude (I could have been having a senior moment, but was that Wilbur from Wilma and the Wilburs?) running around getting all sorts of characters to sign his autograph jacket, hundreds of cellphone-photogs and digital shooters capturing the moments. But this one, by Curtiss A was nothing short of transcendent, as was his soft sha-la-la-la reading of "Baby, It's You" a few minutes later. Here's a photo of Bill Batson, Cindy Lawson, and Randy Weiss, courtesy of Jay Smiley.

8. "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," Bob Dylan. If I hadn't gotten lost at dusk in Southern Minnesota ("2-18, it's a lonely road," indeed), I wouldn't have born witness to the snow drifting across the highway, the wind howling and the slowly spinning futuristic windmills out the window, or heard Mary Lucia outro this guitar-fried blues epic "about" pretty much everything that matters these days and yesterday with a genuinely gobsmacked and so right-on, "That is so good, it's SICK." Like the bumpersticker says: All who wander aren't lost. Or sick.

9. "Pheromone," Prince. Take a whiff, from Diane Ackerman's A Natural History Of The Senses: "Pheromones are the pack animals of desire (from Greek, pherein, to carry, and horman, excite). Animals, like us, not only have distinctive odors, they also have powerfully effective pheromones, which trigger other animals into ovulation and courtship, or establish hierarchies of influence and power.

"Sometimes messages can't be merely immediate, they need to last over time, and yet be a constant signal, like a lighthouse guiding animals through the breakwaters of their uncertainty. Most smells will glow for a while, where a wink may vanish before it's seen, a flexed muscle imply too many things, a voice startle or threaten. For an animal who is prey, the odor of its hunter will warn it; for the hunter, the odor of its prey will lure it."

10. "Castanets," Alejandro Escovedo and "Wonderful Ass," Prince. Happy holidays.

11. "At The Department Of Lost Songs," Jens Lekman. Not even his own irrepressible cute-cleverness can sabotage the wonder that lies at the heart of this small little song about small little songs.

12. "Soul Meets Body," Death Cab For Cutie. Before there was this, there was this:

Song
By Alan Ginsberg

The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction

the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.

Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human--

looks out of the heart
burning with purity-
for the burden of life
is love,
but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.

No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love--
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
--cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:

the weight is too heavy

--must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.

The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye--

yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.

13. "All That I Had," Paul Westerberg. A coda of sorts to "Things," but this time he shucks off worldly possessions and old acquaintances, like the peaceful boat-working wiseman at the end of Siddhartha, and finds himself feeling strangely fine. Good for him.

14. "Hey You," Tommy Stinson. Speaking of wise 'mats.

15. "Conceived," Beth Orton. Can I can keep your dream alive? Can I keep it with mine? Do you still hold me at night? These are her questions. Answers: yes, yes, yes; lilting voice; hopeful mandolin (harp?); after-life melody.

16. "Where Have All The Average People Gone?," Roger Miller. A whistling man, making his way down the road, wondering if/where he fits in, and if there are any sane souls left in the world. A 35-year-old song that shuffles in nicely with any blank you care to fill in today.

17. "Comfortable," James McMurtry. My big sister Minnow keeps telling me I should read The Comfort Trap, but I'm getting bored with my own restlessness, and I'd rather listen to this, a ballad that nicely balances the agony and ecstasy of the cage, back-to-back with Tom Waits' "What's He Building In There?" and Steve Earle's "The Week Of Living Dangerously," or the Walsh Brothers' "(I'm A Walking Talking) Cautionary Tale."

18. "Christmas Present," The Rocket Summer. A crazy-gifted young man plays his acoustic guitar outside his beloved's window, hoping she'll unwrap him before morning. Best Christmas song of the year; then again, I could be totally wrong.

19. "Mary The Blessed," Dirty Martini. Hard to resist anything this wistful/playful, or anything that rhymes "Claire de Lune" with "shoot the moon."

20. "Virgin de Guadalupe," Niobe; "Hymn To Mary," Beth Nielsen Chapman; "Mother Of God," Patty Griffin; "I Summon You," Spoon; "Mary," Lou Barlow; "Mary, Queen of Arkansas," Bruce Springsteen; "Requiem," Eliza Gilkyson; "Our Lady Of Arturo," Ike Reilly; "God Save The Queen," Sex Pistols.

For Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, the biggest religious holiday of the year--bigger than Christmas, even--is The Feast Of Our Lady Of Guadalupe. As Catholic legend has it, the Virgin Mary appeared to the peasant Juan Diego several times in December, 1531 on the outskirts of Mexico City. Over the centuries, the apparitions have inspired all sorts of artworks and churches, and, most recently, a new shrine in La Crosse, Wisconsin, which is scheduled for completion in 2007.

I went to take a look last week. For the time being, the site now boasts a working church, a gift shop (custom-made Guadalupe Christmas tree ornaments: $40), an impressive votive-candle chapel where you can light a candle for one week for $10), and a restaurant (catering available), but no Guadalupe artifacts, shrouds, pieces of flesh, or other such relics that give a shrine its sizzle.

Yeah, it's difficult to believe many pilgrims would make the trip to such an ordinary place of worship, but business should pick up after word gets out that Our Lady appeared to me in the woods behind the church on December 9, 2005. She was wearing a black cashmere sweater, black tights, a black and white plaid skirt, black boots, and a white veil on her head. She was smoking a cigarette, looking out at the fresh snow-dappled horizon, and thumbing through Donald Miller's Searching For God Knows What and Rob Brezsny's Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

I was surprised, because I'd always half-thought that visions like the one Diego and Bernadette and I had were the product of vivid imaginations hungry for a sign, any sign, of grace in this God-forsaken world.

We didn't talk long. She said she liked my new Celtic cross medal. I told her it keeps me close to her and helps keep the vampires away. She asked if I'd stopped in at the La Crosse lager brewery off Hwy 61, and said Mary Magdalene sometimes appears to people there ("I love that girl, she was nothing but good for my boy; have you heard Ryan Adams's 'Hallelujah?'").

She asked me why I came, and I told her I can relate to the Brendan Benson song that starts, "Well I don't know what I'm looking for/But I know that I just wanna look some more/And I won't be satisfied/'Till there's nothing left that I haven't tried/For some people it's an easy choice/ But for me there's a devil and an angel's voice."

I told her the church is beautiful (I took pictures), and that I'm a sucker for stained-glass and candles and statues, but that I felt closer to her, you, me, god, what-have-you up in the woods (I took pictures), away from all the other pilgrims, digging the snow, trees, and birds (I took pictures). I told her it's like Neil Young said in this month's Esquire:

"When I was six, I really didn't know what God was. But I did know about Sunday school. I was reading a lot about God, but I was bored. I couldn't wait to get out of Sunday school. God was secondary to the whole thing. But as time went by, I got more and more angry, to the point where I didn't like religion. Hate is such a strong word. But I just kept getting angrier and angrier… until finally I wasn't angry anymore. I was just peaceful, because I thought: This is not fruitful for me. I rejected the whole thing and found peace in paganism. Jesus didn't go to church. I went way back before Jesus. Back to the forest, to the wheat fields, to the river, to the ocean. I go where the wind is. That's my church."

She quoted the mystics and Diablo Cody, who recently concluded, "If God can be found at a themed hotel in Sin City, I guess God can be found anywhere," and gave me this parting "same ol' same ol'" message to pass on to anyone who happens to happen upon it here:

"Peace. Unconditional love. Look out for each other. Don't hurt each other. Listen to your heart. Merry Christmas."

Tim O'Reagan, "Tim O'Reagan" (released this year on House Of Mercy Recordings; available in April on Lost Highway)
The Gleam, "The Chisago County EP"
Low, "The Great Destroyer"
Gao Hong, Li Jia Xing, and Zhang Ying, "Music Of China"
The Hypstrz, "Live at the Longhorn: The Complete Recordings"
Atmosphere, "You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having"
Cloud Cult, "Advice From the Happy Hippopotamus"
Matt Jennings, "Two Become One"
Robert Skoro, "That These Things Could Be Ours"
Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs, "Last Album"

John Prine, "Fair & Square"
Stars, "Set Yourself On Fire"
Eels, "Blinking Lights"
Sinead O'Connor, "Throw Down Your Arms"
Maria Taylor, "11:11"
Spoon, "Gimme Fiction"
Eliza Gilkyson, "Paradise Hotel"
White Stripes, "Get Behind Me Satan"
Oasis, "Don't Believe The Truth"
Missy Elliot, "The Cookbook"
The Heartless Bastards, "Stairs and Elevators"
The Ike Reilly Assassination, "Junkie Faithful"
Mountain Goats, "The Sunset Tree"
Madonna, "Confessions On A Dance Floor"
The Hold Steady, "Separation Sunday"
Ben Lee, "Awake Is The New Asleep"
Sigur Rus, "Takk"
The Rocket Summer, "Hello, Good Friend"
Sufjan Stevens, "Illinoise"
The New Pornographers, "Twin Cinema"
Neil Young, "Prairie Wind"

This is the best thing I read this weekend. Harold Pinter's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. To my mind, it should have been plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the country the day after he gave it, but the country does not live in my mind. It's a long, wise rant on Americans' head-in-the-sand addiction to comfort and what it has gotten us and the world into, but that's too easy. Here's an excerpt:

"A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don't have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection--unless you lie--in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician."

This is the most beautiful thing I saw this weekend.

This is the song I've had on my mind since Saturday: "Richard Pryor Addresses A Tearful Nation," Joe Henry.

This week's (12/12) playlist and comments comes courtesy of ten-year-old Henry Heyer-Walsh. Take it away, Bud:

1. "Jingle Bells (Single Mix)," Crazy Frog. This song makes me happy because it's a lot a happier version of "Jingle Bells."

2. "Jesus Walks," Kanye West. I've always liked and it's with cool riffs and it's just a cool song.

3. "Lonely," Akon. My sister gets all sad when she hears this song, she cries because it sounds like a poor little mouse praying for its life and I think it's like that too (poor mousie).

4. "Chocolate," Snow Patrol. This song makes me happy because it's not like a poor little mousie praying for it's life

5. "Wicked And Weird," Buck 65. My dad turned me on to this song, he has a lot of songs by Buck.

6. "Turn It Up," Perfect. This song just sounds PERFECT.

7. "Helena," My Chemical Romance. This song has a great music video, not that that matters but I like this song.

8. "I'm Sprung," T-Pain. This song almost goes slow but on www.miniclip.com it's a song they are advertising for a cell phone ring tone.

9. "Tubular Bells (Theme from "The Exorcist")," Mike Oldfield. This song most people will remember from "The Exorcist" theme. I like it because it has beautiful sounding bells.

10. "Life Less Ordinary," Carbon Leaf. I heard this song too much on cities 97 and I needed to know what this song is.

11. "What About Everything?" Carbon Leaf. I have no idea how I got in touch with this song. I think I like it because Zero (my dog) likes it.

12. "Laffy Taffy," D4L. This was also a ring tone from www.miniclip.com that was being advertised.

13. "Warning," Green Day. For this song, I'm just gonna say, "I'm attached to Green Day!"

14. "Basket Case," Green Day. The same thing goes for this song "I HEART GREEN DAY!!!!!!"

15. "When I Come Around," Green Day. My dad and two of my friends went to the concert and we heard this song. The concert was good because I got to go with my dad and Sam and Billy and we had a party and we filled up on Dew before we went. When Green Day came on stage it blew my eardrums. I couldn't hear myself because the crowd was so loud. I forgot what he said about Mr. Prez but he said "you can call me A** hole."

16. "No News Is Good News," New Found Glory. I like how the singer kinda yells.

17. "Singing in My Sleep," Semisonic. I know Dan Wilson. He's a good friend of my daddy's. This song actually puts me to sleep (I think it tries to taunt me!)

18. "Blue Orchid," The White Stripes. When I first heard this song I went crazy for some reason.

19. "Starfish and Coffee," Prince. The song makes me hungry

20. "Another One Rides the Bus," "Weird Al" Yankovic. This song really freaks me out man!!!!!!!!!!!! No wonder they called him "weird."

I have no idea why I want to do this but if you would like to find some fun on the Internet here are some websites you should visit. If you are a parent reading it tell your child! Please.

1. Miniclip
2. JibJab
3. Homestar Runner
4. ArcadeTown
5. Game Arcade
6. Pogo
7. Daily Show
8. Super Arcade
9. Postopia

Check those out!

1. "City Lights," "Hundred Dollar Bill," "Rocketship," etc., Dylan Hicks. Here begins the campaign to draft this ace songwriter-slash-writer up on stage to sing a couple of his much-missed tunes at First Avenue's 35th anniversary party next week. If you agree, tell him yourself at dhicks@citypages.com. A guy can dream, can't he?

2. "Sad and Beautiful World," Sparklehorse. Just got back from walking the dogs. The city is dark and quiet, under the first blanket of snow. The creek, lakes, and river are starting to ice up. Helped out at a funeral today. Coffee, cakes, wraps, penne pasta, coats, scarves. An old friend sent a crate of mandarin oranges from an organic farm in California. The sticker on the box reads "Protect From Freezing," but doesn't say how.

3. "Dignity and Shame," Crooked Fingers. I read somewhere that when you're in your teens, change is like putting on a new pair of jeans; as you get older, change is like turning a big ship. This is the sound of the creak of the vast vessel, cutting through the waves.

4. "Change," Tracy Chapman. A song about turning points that turns into a turning point itself. For the listener to be in its presence and ignore its lessons, is to not even hear the fucking song, not even be of the same species as her, and to thine own true self be untrue.

5. "I Will Keep The Bad Things From You," The Damnwells. I will sleep above the covers, I will love you like no other," sings the knight in shining armor just before the fall, then he turns his notebook page-so quietly/clearly you can almost hear the studio couch and beer at his side-to a new chapter.

6. "Paradise With You," Hot Club Of Cowtown. Best durn love song I've heard in a coon's age, from the soundtrack to Four Dead Batteries.

7. "This Time Isn't One Of Those," Vigilantes Of Love. The Beatitudes (acoustic version).

8. "I Envy The Wind," Lucinda Williams. Not to mention all those lucky-ass snowflakes.

9. "Northwest Airlines," Wesley Willis. What happens to all those mechanics holding signs on the side of the freeway that read, "You're Next" when the temperature goes below zero?

10. "Hung Up," Madonna. Like Brianna said, if you can't dance to this-even on the inside, even just a little bit-you're fucking dead.

11. "You and Me," Her Space Holiday. The fetal-going chump-guy gets the worst of it in this break-up tune, but maybe that's just me: It's hard to hear him over the voice-over in my head, from Rob in High Fidelity: "What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

12. "You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast," Buddy and Julie Miller. Keefish guitar riff + plainspoken lust + Julie moaning "c'mon baby, take me to school" = a blurry beacon that shines with the same promise as the White Stripes' "We Are Gonna Be Friends."

13. "Blank Husband Epidemic," Of Montreal. Unhappy aunts and uncles! Unsuccessful men! Restless-hearted women! A ditty! A happy ending!

14. "Living In The Moment," Mason Jennings; "Moment In The Sun," Clem Snide; "Moment," Zolof The Rock 'n' Roll Destroyer; "Be Here Now," Oasis. Eighty-six-year-old poet and City Lights bookstore founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti in the New York Times magazine: "In the 60's, there was a famous slogan, 'Be Here Now,' which in fact was a best-selling book by Ram Dass. Today, with the cell phones, the fax, the Internet, the whole schmear--the slogan you have today is 'Be Somewhere Else Now.'"

15. "Throw Down Your Arms," Sinead O'Connor. The high-priestess, clad in priest frock and crucifix around her neck, speaking for all the First Avenue sinners and good souls fighting to be better, stronger, purer: "If we can't be good, we'll be careful and do the best we can."

16. "In Case We Die," Amy Nelson. A carpe diem waltz that makes the most of the end-of-the-affair moment, recasts the romantic melodrama with smart-ass humor, but never can say goodbye.

17. "Guitar Strings and Foolish Things," Cash Brothers. Nostalgia as Band-aid.

18. "Apply Some Pressure," Maximo Park. What happens when you lose everything? You start over again.

19. "I Gotta Run," Everybody Else. For the full story, don't listen to the little boy-bluster that says, "I don't miss you," "I don't want to see you," and "I'm done." Listen to the guitar gently weeping, and the sing-songy break when he pep-talks himself into his new way of being, "He don't love you like I do, but I can't chase you anymore today."

20. "For Everyman," Jackson Browne. Those much-hyped "noise cancelling" headphones suck. I know; I tried 'em, and I could still hear the Bose store clerks hawking home entertainment systems. Call me crazy, but for $300 you should get a head-hermitage that takes you away with as much hush as this ode to outsiderdom/self-spirituality, from Jackson's new live one.

This week's guest Walshfilers:

Gary Louris: "Everybody's Happy Nowadays," The Buzzcocks. "Philosophical punk rock, but mainly just 'cos. It was that or 'Nothing Compares to U' by Sinead or 'Get Back In the Line' by the Kinks or 'The Kiss' by Judee Sill. Screw it. I think I will pick 'Astronomy Domine' by Pink Floyd, because I love Syd. Syd and Skip Spence should have ruled the world, let's face it."

Marc Perlman: "Let It Be," Gladys Knight & the Pips. "You may find yourself someday a prefabricated American Idol runner-up or last year's Nashville sensation. You may find even find yourself Rod Stewart. In other words, you may find yourself irrelevant. You never could or no longer can write your own songs. That's OK. But for god's sake, don't make anyone else's worse. In other words, leave the Beatles, Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Kris Kristofferson, etc. alone; stick with the Diane Warren and David Foster.

"Because you're too talentless and not fun enough to do covers like Hookers and Blow; or you're too talentless, uninnovative and soulless to interpret the great songs, like Joe Cocker used to (and with due credit to Denny Cordell, Leon Russell, The Grease Band and Jimmy Page). Don't, because you can't. Please.

"Because it takes more than talent. Cocker's defining of Traffic's "Feeling Alright" and The Lovin' Spoonful's "Darling Be Home Soon" was nothing compared to the sheer gall it took to completely hijack "With A Little Help From My Friends," "The Letter," and "Just Like A Woman".

"The art of interpreting classic songs is dead. It died with Cocker, Motown, Gamble and Huff. The soul singers. One of whom, a young lady with a voice that could rival Mavis Staples, along with her older brother and a couple cousins, took Paul McCartney's most emotionally recorded ballads and made it unlistenable. I don't mean unlistenable like how the Counting Crows made "Big Yellow Taxi" unlistenable for all time. I mean as great as The Beatles' version of "Let It Be" is, as much as I listen to The Beatles almost daily, I find myself skipping over theirs in favor of Gladys Knight and The Pips' version. Sacrilegious, yes, but hear what she does that today's "song interpreters" don't, the way she finds the thing that makes the song more than the songwriter: That "other" that ties our emotions to McCartney's and hers and everyone's.

"You can talk about how the Motown and Gamble and Huff/Philadelphia production style was more on top of the beat, more gospel; or about emotion was brought out in the arrangements and instrumentation--all of which is true. But what it boils down to is guts. Guts to take a song and make it yours. That's what she did with "Let It Be". Not for posterity, the way Cocker did with "With A Little Help From My Friends." But for that moment, when she was singing it, when the mic went to tape, it was all hers."