DUBLIN, Ireland - A thief made off with 180 kegs of Guinness beer after smoothly driving into the Dublin brewery, which makes the black stout and snatching a trailer load of drink, police said Thursday. The incident took place Wednesday at the Guinness brewery on the banks of Dublin's River Liffey where Ireland's trademark tipple has been brewed for almost 250 years. The lone raider's haul also contained 180 kegs of Budweiser and 90 barrels of Carlsberg lager, police said. "A man drove into the yard in a truck and took a trailer containing the drink which has an estimated value of 64,000 euros ($94,770)," a police spokesman said.

Ryan has many songs about Jacksonville specifically and the area in general but The End is one of his more recent ones: I don't know the sound of my father's voice I don't even know how he says my name But it plays out like a song on a jukebox in a bar In the back of my head Till its worrying machine And in the cotton fields by the house where I was born The leaves burn like effigies of my kin And the trains run like snakes Through the Pentecostal pines Filled up with cotton and dime store gin Oh Jacksonville, how you burden my soul How you hold all my dreams captive Jacksonville, how you play with my mind How my heart goes bad Suffocating on the pines in Jacksonville The end, the end, the end All the cars are lined up on a Saturday night With a sky full of nothing but moon And I lose my reflection in a bottle of wine Till the morning comes down And I ain't nothing but blue (you) At the diner in the morning for a plate of eggs The waitress tries to give me change, I say "Nah its cool. you just keep it" I read up my news I start thinking about her And I wonder if anybody here besides me Has got any decent secrets Oh Jacksonville, how you burden my soul How you hold all my dreams captive Jackson-Hell, how you play with my mind How my heart goes bad suffocating on the pines In Jacksonville The end, the end, the end

Thankfully I still have family in the area so I try to visit as often as I can. One of my favorite haunts is the Yacht Club but unfortunately they only have live music one night a week now. Otherwise, they've given into a DJ who brings in more of the meatmarket/singles crowd and plays Hip Hop/Rap almost exclusively. Used to, the clientile was more like something out of a vintage Jimmy Buffett song: shrimpers, bikers, hippies, rednecks, Marines, surfers/skaters, tourists, locals, a diverse mix of people.

Cool. I see where Chris Barron is going to be doing a solo acoustic show here (NC) soon.

I have only owned The Song Remains the Same on vinyl so the new remastered edition will be my first time purchasing it on CD. As for the movie, I saw it at the late show at one of the local theatres back in the early 80s but have never owned it in any format except for a still unwatched DVD I purchased a few years ago. I have the Deluxe Collector's edition on my ever expanding Christmas wishlist.

http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?ID=2974 Mumbled lyrics, couldn’t-care-less strumming, white dudes in sweaters — what’s not to love about indie rock? Born 25-odd years ago in suburban garages and spread via college radio, it has made distortion into something hummable, boredom into something thrilling and aimlessness into a raison d’être — and these days, thanks to blogs and the fine people at Grey’s Anatomy, it’s more popular than ever. From Kurt to Sufjan, Stipe to the White Stripes, Blender presents the definitive indie-rock user’s guide. By Jon Dolan, Josh Eells, Will Hermes, Jonah Weiner and Douglas Wolk Blender, December 2007 100. The Shaggs, Philosophy of the World, Third World, 1969 Despite/because of zero aptitude, the Wiggins sisters made an accidental masterpiece of screwed-up, desperate self-expression. Download: “My Pal Foot Foot” 99. Dream Syndicate, The Days of Wine and Roses, Ruby/Slash, 1982 These L.A. amp torturers loved druggy late-’60s rock, but their pouty new-wave aspect made the throwback seem cool. Download: “Tell Me When It’s Over” 98. Palace Music, Viva Last Blues, Drag City, 1995 Will Oldham warbles oddly over country-blues. So freaky, R. Kelly cast him in “Trapped in the Closet”! Download: “The Mountain Low” 97. The Mekons, Rock ’n’ Roll, Twin/Tone/A&M, 1989 The smartest band to come out of first-wave U.K. punk — you can almost hear the quotation marks in their voices. Download: “Memphis, Egypt” 96. TV on the Radio, Retun to Cookie Mountain, Interscope, 2006 An arena-scale vision of indie rock broadcast straight from some grimy Brooklyn loft. Download: “Wolf Like Me” 95. The Dismemberment Plan, Emegency & I, DeSoto, 1999 Travis Morrison’s upper-class critiques meet these off-kilter jams like he’s trying to cram three albums of smartness into a single CD. Download: “Gyroscope” 94. Half Japanese, Greatest Hits, Safe House, 1995 Undeniably difficult and trium*phantly messy, it’s a 69-“song” treatise on why talent is for suckers. Download: “Charmed Life” 93. Big Black, Atomizer, Homestead, 1985 Steve Albini’s guitar sounded like sheet metal being torn in half, his lyrics concerned bored suburban self-immolators and his band played at plane-crash volume. Download: “Kerosene” 92. Dead Kennedys, Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables, Alternative Tentacles, 1980 San Francisco anarchist Jello Biafra sang about modern atrocities with an absurdist irony. The shtick worked. Download: “Kill the Poor” 91. The Chills, Kaleidoscope World, Homestead, 1985 This New Zealand band’s alternately hopeful and shattered early singles revisited the abandoned halls of ’60s party music. Download: “Pink Frost” 90. Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam, Domino, 2007 These New York weirdos fashion deceptively hummable melodies out of burbling, buzzing, fidgety synths. Download: “Peacebone” 89. Art Brut, Bang Bang Rock & Roll, Fierce Panda, 2005 Eddie Argos is indie rock’s finest stand-up comic. While his bandmates chug along punkishly, he reels off fantastic one-liners. Download: “Formed a Band” 88. Daniel Johnston, Yip/Jump Music, Stress, 1983 This mentally ill Texan’s homemade tapes, championed by the likes of Bowie, Beck and Matt Groening, are so lo-fi they make Guided by Voices sound like Jefferson Starship. Download: “Speeding Motorcycle” 87. Wolf Parade, Apologies to the Queen Mary, Sub Pop, 2005 Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug bellow like existential carnival barkers over desperate skronks. Download: “I’ll Believe in Anything” 86. Flipper, Album—Generic Flipper, Subterranean, 1982 The slowest, heaviest hardcore-punk band; Will Shatter’s dogmatic optimism turned stage dives into trust falls. Download: “Sex Bomb” 85. The Clean, Anthology, Merge, 2003 This two-disc set spans the bright-eyed bashes of their teenage years, their ’80s breakneck jams and their ’90s psychedelia. Download: “Odditty” 84. Beat Happening, You Turn Me On, K/Sub Pop, 1992 For onetime childish primitivists, their final album was the sound of growing up, with all its pain and joy. Download: “Godsend” 83. The Misfits, Walk Among Us, Ruby/Slash, 1982 Fronted by a rabid Glenn Danzig, this crew of Jersey kids channeled their obsession with vintage horror flicks into fist-in-the-air hardcore. Download: “Skulls” 82. The Embarrassment, Heyday 1979–83, Bar/None, 1995 The Wichita wiseacres yelped ironic choruses like “I’m a Don Juan!” over nervy power pop, as if being regular was way weirder than being weird. Download: “I’m a Don Juan” 81. The Vaselines, The Way of the Vaselines, Sub Pop, 1992 Sky-high on their own hormones, trading jabs and uncertain har*monies, this Scottish duo bounced through songs like they couldn’t wait to get back to making out. Download: “Son of a Gun” 80. Feist, The Reminder, Cherry Tree/Interscope, 2007 Chicken soup for the indie-rock soul: sweet but not precious, warm and inviting like a flannel duvet. Download: “1234” 79. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, ClapYourHandsSayYeah.com, 2005 Alec Ounsworth’s voice is pinched and ugly, but he wrings pretty melodies from it, moaning about child stars and glam androgynes over ramshackle dance-rock. Download: “Over and Over Again” 78. The 13th Floor Elevators, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, International Artists, 1966 They frightened flower children with their garage-rock freakouts, then met a sad end when singer Roky Erickson was committed. Download: “You’re Gonna Miss Me” 77. Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, Domino, 2006 This debut dazzles with lyrics about dead-end geezers and Saturday-night punch-ups so excellent that cynics suspected 21-year-old Alex Turner of thievery. Download: “The View From the Afternoon” 76. Le Tigre, Le Tigre, Mr. Lady, 1999 Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna bought a drum machine and gave her asshole-smiting feminist punk a disco makeover. Download: “My My Metrocard” 75. Galaxie 500, Today, Aurora, 1988 Lullabies for people who get too much sleep anyway Formed at Harvard (they borrowed their first drum kit from dorm-mate Conan O’Brien), the original “slow core” band transported the urban roar of the Velvet Under*ground to quiet leafy New England. Future Luna frontman Dean Wareham’s singing found the sweet spot between a whine, a yawn and a meow, while the lolling riffs blanketed him in pillowy beauty. Download: “Tugboat,” “Instrumental” 74. The Fall, 50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong, Beggars Banquet, 2004 Acid-tongued poet’s greatest riffs Where to begin with the hyper*prolific Fall, mush-mouthed Mancunian poet Mark E. Smith’s repetition-crazed band? Try this impeccable retrospective of their first quarter-century (featuring an excellently cheeky Elvis gag of a title), surveying the chaotic grind of their early years—material that would later inspire Pavement — their late-’80s flirtation with dance-pop and their more recent stabs at electronically augmented punk rock. Download: “Totally Wired,” “Free Range” 73. Meat Puppets, Up On the Sun, SST, 1985 Bummed bros let the sun shine in The Kirkwoods followed the haunted country of Meat Puppets II with the sunny, oddly contented jams of this jangling paradise — they even whistled their way through the bucolic “Maiden’s Milk.” Musing on subjects like God, rivers and swimming grounds, and even throwing in a goofy dick joke, this is freewheeling summer fun, *tailor-made for beach parties in quarry pools. Download: “Up on the Sun,” “Maiden’s Milk” 72. The Mountain Goats, We Shall All Be Healed, 4AD, 2004 Lyrics about drugs, jail, hospitals and redemption, but not in that order High-strung literary genius John Darnielle enlisted a driving, agile folk-rock band to help shape his brilliantly detailed depictions of American castoffs who refuse to cave in when the cosmos craps in their Wheaties. (Note: the Wheaties are often amphetamines.) Download: “Letter From Belgium,” “Palmcorder Yajna” 71. Stereolab, Refried Ectoplasm, Drag City, 1995 Hallucinatory drones, utopian politics Their second singles compilation hits a lot of their career high points — a harmonic convergence of galloping grooves, singer Laetitia Sadier’s airy Francophone utopianism and guitarist Tim Gane’s command of retro-futuristic easy-listening tones. Download: “French Disko,” “John Cage Bubblegum” 70. Mudhoney, Superfuzz Bigmuff Plus Early Singles, Sub Pop, 1990 A flannel blueprint for the Seattle Sound This singles compilation is named for a distortion pedal and, indeed, Mark Arm’s sociopath screeds wouldn’t carry as much menace if it weren’t for the overdriven guitar: rusty and scabrous and hellishly loud. Listen to just one song and you’ll want a tetanus shot. Download: “Touch Me I’m Sick,” “You Got It (Keep It Outta My Face)” 69. Nick Drake, Pink Moon, Island, 1972 The granddaddy of whispery wimp-folk This English hermit didn’t record much before he died from an overdose of antidepressants, but his sainted image looms over anyone who ever shut their bedroom door and strummed the world away. Download: “Pink Moon,” “Free Ride” 68. Descendents, Milo Goes to College, New Alliance, 1982 Good at science, less so at life Milo Aukerman lashes out at girls, parents and the SoCal suburbs in red-eyed rants that sounded great echoing off half-pipes. Download: “Suburban Home,” “Bikeage” 67. Hüsker Dü, New Day Rising, SST, 1985 Midwest hardcore survivors in punk-vs.-pop death match In which Bob Mould’s howling guitar fought Grant Hart’s sensitively surly songs about girls and books to a tense, thrilling stalemate. Download: “I Apologize,” “Books About UFOs” 66. Young Marble Giants, Colossal Youth, Rough Trade, 1980 The quietest punk band ever Alison Statton sings just above a murmur; the Moxham brothers barely brush at their instruments. But their songs are mostly about things left unsaid, and there’s enormous tension lurking in all that empty space. Download: “Include Me Out,” “N.I.T.A.” 65. Various Artists, No New York, Antilles, 1978 The original document of no wave The four bands on this long-out-of-print compilation, produced by Brian Eno, formed the core of the New York “no wave” scene. Mars, DNA, the Contortions and Teenage Jesus & the Jerks approached music as an extension of experimental visual art — raw, gnarled, spooky and disgusted with flesh. Download: The Contortions, “Dish It Out”; Mars, “Puerto Rican Ghost” 64. Cat Power, The Greatest, Matador 2006 A mopey It Girl stops freaking, finds groove Chan Marshall raised the stakes of her unrooted roots music with the help of vintage Al Green session men and made an indie-rock Mary J. Blige album. Download: “Living Proof,” “Lived in Bars” 63. Nirvana, Bleach, Sub Pop, 1989 Seattle band offers relatively *promising debut Nirvana proved how indie they were by listing the rock-bottom cost of recording their debut ($606.17) on its sleeve. But even this skeletal, Dave Grohl–less version of their popwise scuzz-rock showed heart and hooks well beyond the band’s grunge peers. Kurt Cobain’s alienation was just too people-friendly to be hemmed in by cultural or budgetary restrictions. Download: “About a Girl,” “Love Buzz” 62. The Feelies, Crazy Rhythms, Stiff, 1980 So geek-chic that Weezer stole their album-cover art Indie rock’s original jam band obsessed over their piled-up Velvet Underground riffs like freshmen cramming for a physics final. Tucked away in sleepy Haledon, New Jersey, their distance from a “scene” let them pursue their epic geek power. Download: “Crazy Rhythms,” “The Boy With the Perpetual Nervousness” 61. LCD Soundsystem, LCD Soundsystem, DFA/EMI, 2005 Self-lacerating scenester extraordinaire James Murphy speaks for every record collector who ever wanted to start a band. Here, he played both the punk and disco ends of the field, sometimes simultaneously — borrowing from the icons of hipster culture while mocking them mercilessly. Download: “Losing My Edge,” “Daft Punk Is *Playing at My House” 60. Sufjan Stevens, Illinois, Asthmatic Kitty, 2005 A love letter to the land of Lincoln Stevens’s fifth album is geekily ambitious (each song explores a different aspect of Illinois history) and overstuffed with theatrics. But the arrangements tend toward hypnotic drones, and Stevens sings in a captivating hush. Download: “Chicago,” “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!” 59. Nine Inch Nails, Pretty Hate Machine, TVT, 1989 The national anthems of industrial music If you abuse mascara and/or cut yourself, you are legally obligated to own this record. The first album by Trent Reznor, its gunpoint coupling of new wave and raw noise became a mission statement for all subsequent industrial rock. Download: “Head Like a Hole,” “Terrible Lie” 58. Built to Spill, There’s Nothing Wrong With Love, Up, 1994 Idaho friggin’ rocks! Frontmen don’t come much more unassuming than Doug Martsch, a balding nostalgic with a quavery Neil Young falsetto. But he wields his guitar like a flamethrower, enlivening tales of lovelorn teenagerdom — getting baked, making out and staring at the stars. Download: “Big Dipper,” “Car” 57. Bikini Kill, Pussy Whipped, Kill Rock Stars, 1993 The original riot grrrls: cute when they’re angry For a moment in the early ’90s, punk-rock feminism was everywhere, and Kathleen Hanna and Tobi Vail’s furious, blazing band was its figurehead. Their first full-length album is pissed-off, funny, touching and very loud. Download: “Rebel Girl,” “Star Bellied Boy” 56. Archers of Loaf, Icky Mettle, Alias, 1993 Southern boys spitting mad about other people’s trust funds Indie rockers love complaining about indie rock. These North Carolinians did it with unwarranted urgency, delivering bow shots at the jaded scene in air-punching basement anthems. Download: “Web in Front,” “Might” 55. Bad Brains, Bad Brains, ROIR, 1982 Decimating the punk-rock color line These monstrously skilled reformed jazz-fusionists couldn’t get work in their native D.C., being a black band that sounded like the Sex Pistols (but faster and with reggae). So they decamped to New York and made the spiked-collar competition look like yapping poodles. Download: “Pay to Cum,” “Attitude” 54. Unrest, Imperial F.F.R.R., Teenbeat, 1992 Jangly songs about sex, with a highbrow edge Mark Robinson’s Teenbeat label, whose flagship band was this constantly touring trio, brought a designer’s consciousness to indie pop: high-concept, witty, occasionally arch and equally fond of both dense detail and negative space. Their most radiant album is divided between exuberant, sex-obsessed batter-and-strum and dreamy, near-ambient meditations. Download: “Cherry Cream On,” “June” 53. Smashing Pumpkins, Gish, Caroline, 1991 Grunge’s prince of pain, before he got too poet-y While his Gen X contemporaries were down in their basements whining about their dads, Billy Corgan was dreaming of filling stadiums. The Pumpkins’ debut, helmed by superproducer-to-be Butch Vig, was arty and self-consciously epic: six-minute guitar jams, Eastern metaphysics, song titles in Italian. It’s sweeping, exquisite melancholy, minus all the heroin. Download: “Rhinoceros,” “Siva” 52. Bright Eyes, Lifted or The Story Is in The Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground, Saddle Creek, 2002 Child prodigy comes of age, launches 100,000 collegiate crushes Omaha, Nebraska’s poet laureate of youthful disaffection, Conor Oberst was 22 when he made this set, which defined not just his own baroque emo-folk, but the whole arty-retro aesthetic of the Omaha scene — nearly all the members of which played on this record. Download: “Bowl of Oranges,” “The Big Picture” 51. Interpol, Turn On the Bright Lights, Matador, 2002 Because depressives need dance parties, too If you’re going to spend an album licking wounds, at least play really fast. That’s the lesson of this New York foursome’s debut, in which gloomy Paul Banks broods about slit throats and masochistic romances. There are a few lullabies, but the band mostly hits the ground running with interlocking riffs and giddyap grooves. Download: “Roland,” “Obstacle 1” 50. Rilo Kiley, More Adventurous, Brute/Beaute, 2004 Hollywood kids kiss with their teeth Ex-actress Jenny Lewis found her finest role yet: stone indie fox. Comprising bittersweet torch songs, sexy protest songs and just plain come-fuck-me songs, her band’s third album presented Lewis as a honey-voiced, poison-tongued alpha girl. Download: “Portions for Foxes,” “It’s a Hit” 49. Spoon, Kill the Moonlight, Merge, 2002 An underrated indie-rock gem about underrated indie-rock gems Hooray, slackers! On his bespoke crew’s jittery breakthrough, singer Britt Daniel outlined a battle cry for the underdogs: “Small Stakes” glorifies life on pop’s ramen-fueled margins, and the jaunty “The Way We Get By” celebrates getting stoned and flying blissfully under the radar. Then, one year later, they showed up on The O.C. Oh, well. Download: “The Way We Get By,” “Stay Don’t Go” 48. Mission of Burma, Vs., Ace of Hearts, 1982 Dissonant anthems from Boston trailblazers Boston’s most fondly remembered punk band, MOB’s only full-length studio album is packed with grinding dissonances and wound as tightly as a coil of DNA. Download: “That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate,” “Trem Two” 47. Green Day, Kerplunk, Lookout!, 1992 The American idiots, before they were American idols Billie Joe Armstrong brimmed with goobery brashness as the bristling, attention-deficient tunes gave Sex Pistols riffs a cocky Cali sheen. Download: “2000 Light Years Away,” “Welcome to Paradise” 46. Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand, Domino, 2004 Bi-curious? Buy Scottish! Imagining the choppy grooves of the Gang of Four and Talking Heads as last-call makeout jams, FF made flirty a postpunk appellation to strive for. Frontman Alex Kapranos was a mercenary shag-hound of the highest order, wooing girls and boys alike with dada come-ons like “you can feel my lips undress your eyes.” Download: “Take Me Out,” “Michael” 45. Fugazi, Repeater, Dischord, 1990 D.C. punk activists so ethical they make Ralph Nader look like Akon In ’80s straight-edge bomb throwers Minor Threat, Ian MacKaye shouted vein-popping jeremiads against drinking, drugs, conformism, even sex. His equally strict adult band Fugazi took on corporatism, but with a nuanced introspection as elastic as their moody punk. Some head scratching goes nicely with the fist slamming. Download: “Repeater,” “Merchandise” 44. Various Artists, Wanna Buy a Bridge?, Rough Trade, 1980 The 14 commandments of postpunk Long out of print (hunt it down on the Web), this survey of circa-1980 postpunk singles is a magnificent snapshot of radical sounds, off-center grooves and earnest politics — the singing voices alone are a survey of alien beauty. Download: Delta 5, “Mind Your Own Business”; Kleenex, “Ain’t You” 43. Black Flag, Damaged, SST, 1981 The hardcore-est hardcore band of the ’80s Muscle-bound yowler and future IFC personality Henry Rollins found his voice fronting Orange County, California’s angriest youth brigade. SST Records founder Greg Ginn electroshocked his guitar while Rollins yelled about graffiti, beer, cops, depression and other highlights of a “life of pain” he shared with thousands of Mohawked rejects the nation over. Download: “Rise Above,” “TV Party” 42. Brian Eno, Another Green World, E.G., 1975 The beginnings of “post-rock” Former Roxy Music star Eno started pushing the boundaries of songs, music and ambient sound. His third studio album included only five (exquisite) songs with vocals; the rest of it played with instrumental timbre and rhythmic stasis, clearing a path for the entire post-rock move*ment’s fascination with rich sonics. Download: “St. Elmo’s Fire,” “I’ll Come Running” 41. Modest Mouse, The Lonesome Crowded West, Up, 1997 A great road-trip album, especially if you’re planning on driving off a cliff Isaac Brock visits malls and sees ghost towns. He imagines God and sees a deadbeat dad. In other words, his band’s second album is one sublime bummer. Through it all, Brock is our wide-eyed tour guide, switching from a boozy roar to a sweet lisp while guitars snarl and swerve gorgeously around him. Download: “Doin’ the Cockroach,” “Truckers Atlas” 40. New Oder, Power Corruption & Lies, Factory, 1983 World-changing disco-punk jams The remaining members of Joy Division bounced back from Ian Curtis’s suicide and made a beeline from the funeral home to the club. Their moody guitars, hopeful synths and pasty disco beats influenced thousands of dance bands, but few have come close to the pathos in Bernard Sumner’s voice, which cracks with promise. Download: “Blue Monday,” “The Village” 39. Pavement, Cooked Rain, Cooked Rain, Matador, 1994 Snarky emo boys denounce big hair, Smashing Pumpkins Wanting to have their cryptic, wiseass, underground cake and eat it, too, the band benefitted from an under-the-table distribution deal with an evil major label, with predictable losses and gains. The result was a handful of brilliant songs, and a mass-culture blip. Download: “Silence Kit,” “Cut Your Hair” 38. The Strokes, Is This It, RCA, 2001 Making pop radio safe for Nu Yawk hipsters They had the awesomest spoiled-rich-kid names, the coolest too-bored pouts, natty tie-and-denim-jacket combos for every day of the week and, oh yes, girls seemed to find them attractive. But these LES PYTs got over on their sleek, sugar-sharp ’70s punk-pop, topped off with Julian Casablancas’s impeccably sloshed croon. Download: “Last Night,” “Hard to Explain” 37. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever to Tell, Interscope, 2003 They pummel you, then sing you to sleep This album is one raucous garage-rock tantrum after another — it frequently sounds as though Karen O is wrestling a trash compactor. And then — wham! — we get “Maps,” the power ballad Kelly Clarkson wisely ripped off for “Since U Been Gone” — and which scored countless hipster mating rituals and eyeliner-smeared breakups. Download: “Rich,” “Maps” 36. Elliott Smith, Either/Or, Kill Rock Stars, 1997 Doomed singer-songwriter’s muted rage Smith had seen the roughest parts of life, and his third album (on which he played all the instruments himself) transmuted its evocations of substance abuse, nihilism and crushing despair into something poignant and resonant. His career got a boost when three songs from Either/Or resurfaced on the Good Will Hunting soundtrack. Download: “Between the Bars,” “Ballad of Big Nothing” 35. Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville, Matador, 1993 An angry, one-woman masquerade Her debut made two things clear: One, she loved to play with made-up, sexually provocative personae. Two, she was a brilliant songwriter, dissecting complicated emotional states and writing twisted hooks. Download: “Divorce Song,” “6'1"” 34. Superchunk, On the Mouth, Matador, 1993 A clever punk band with a great head for business The “indie”-est band of the ’90s, they released records on their thriving Merge label and cranked out hyper, distortion-buzzing pop so loud singer-guitarist Mac McCaughan practically went hoarse shouting over the racket. Download: “Precision Auto,” “The Question Is How Fast” 33. The Shins, Oh, Inverted World, Sub Pop, 2001 Like old Simon & Garfunkel records, minus the annoying grooviness In this worried, gorgeous ’00s update on ’60s fireside folk, anxiety-poet James Mercer sang shy la-la-las and ghostly woo-woos in songs with titles like “Weird Divide” and “Caring Is Creepy,” ideal for dates in psychoanalyst waiting rooms. Download: “New Slang,” “Caring Is Creepy” 32. Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Merge, 1998 Southern neo-hippie loves Anne Frank Crazy, yammering poetic genius Jeff Mangum made a Dalí-influenced freak-rock album rife with banjo, Uilleann pipes and flugelhorn based on his dreams about a Jewish family in World War II. Then he vanished, leaving worshippers like Arcade Fire in his wake. Download: “The King of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two and Three,” “Holland, 1945” 31. Guided by Voices, Bee Thousand, Matador, 1994 The crown prince of the lo-fi scene Robert Pollard fantasized that he was a rock star, and it came true, sort of. GBV were barely known outside their Bud-soaked, Dayton, Ohio, basements when they patched together their seventh album from 20 home-recorded fragments (launched from an unstoppable song machine); before long, they were indie heroes. Download: “Smothered in Hugs,” “Gold Star for Robot Boy” 30. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Nonesuch, 2002 This is Americana … on drugs At the time, Wilco’s cracked mas*terpiece was obscured by a label-drama backstory. Unburdened by history, its pleasures are clearer: Jeff Tweedy’s warm, meandering melodies and a chilly sense of despair that hangs over the album like a Vicodin haze. Download: “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” “Jesus, Etc.” 29. Violent Femmes, Violent Femmes, Slash, 1982 After beer and Bob Vecker, what made Milwaukee famous Mangling acoustic instruments while pumping their shame-crazed folk-punk with the teen angst of a thousand Holden Caulfields, Wisconsin’s wimpiest came on like exploding human pimples. Download: “Blister in the Sun,” “Add It Up” 28. The Magnetic Fields, 69 Love Songs, Merge, 1999 Maybe the greatest old-fashioned tune whiz never to have a hit Indie rockers usually eschew conventional songcraft; melody geyser Stephin Merritt is addicted to it. On this three-disc testament to pop’s primary obsession, the resplendently gay, devilishly smart, hilariously deadpan NYC crooner cycled every style of the 20th century through his synth-pop aesthetic, rhyming Ferdinand de Saussure, kosher and closure in the process. Download: “The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure,” “A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off” 27. M.I.A., Arular, XL, 2005 Hip-hop recast as internationalist rebel music M.I.A. makes a point of her Third World roots and revolutionary politics, and the first rule of Third World revolution is that you make weapons from whatever’s at hand. So her debut was a DJ-grenade lobbed into the disco, with sharpened fragments of dancehall, electroclash, jungle and new wave flying everywhere. Download: “Galang,” “10 Dollar” 26. Belle and Sebastian, If You’re Feeling Sinister, The Enclave, 1996 Songs about girls who like boys who like boys who like … Stuart Murdoch made it cool to be a sexually confused aesthete for the first time since the Smiths. On his septet’s second album, populated by messed-up teenagers straight out of J.D. Salinger, he distilled the blithely tuneful indie-pop aesthetic into intoxicatingly potent songs with elegant, formal orchestrations. Download: “The Stars of Track and Field,” “Seeing Other People” 25. Sebadoh, III, Homestead, 1991 Do not let your kid sister date this man Leaving Dinosaur Jr., where his bass playing and atonal prattling were clearly not being appreciated, Lou Barlow became indie’s preeminent sensitive male — James Taylor with a bong, a crappy tape recorder and free time to translate his girl-scarred soul into rattletrap hate-folk. Download: “The Freed Pig,” “Scars, Four Eyes” 24. The New Pornographers, Mass Romantic, Mint/Matador, 2000 The power-pop studio experiment that came crackling to life It was originally an ad-hoc trifle, recorded over the course of almost three years: frontman Carl Newman’s vivacious power-pop project, with additional songs written by Destroyer’s Dan Bejar and occasional vocals by alt-country singer Neko Case. Then it caught on, and suddenly the Pornographers were a real band. Download: “Letter From an Occupant,” “The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism” 23. Yo La Tengo, Painful, Matador/Atlantic, 1993 Feedback that wraps you up like a favorite fall sweater Husband-and-wife team Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, foster parents to a million heartwarming squalls, spent the sweetest record of their 20-year career mumbling about the strangeness of love over haunting distortion, meditative folk and droning organs. A garage-rock version of domestic bliss. Download: “From a Motel 6,” “Big Day Coming” 22. Meat Puppets, Meat Puppets II, SST, 1984 Country rock for easily agitated stoners Brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood were Arizona acidheads who fingerpicked hillbilly solos and loved hardcore punk, so they accompanied their mumbled country visions of desert alienation with psychedelic sun-stroked noodling. Singing about the devil, drugs, “living Nixon’s mess” and their own spacious stupidity, they imagined the Southwest as a boundless dead end. Download: “Lost,” “I’m a Mindless Idiot” 21. The Modern Lovers, The Modern Lovers, Berserkley, 1976 Jonathan Richman’s art-brut magnum opus Recorded in 1972 and released after the band had broken up, these crude demos became a landmark: the bridge between the Velvet Underground (whom frontman Jonathan Richman idolized) and punk rock. Richman had no time for fancy stuff — he was too busy being in love with “the modern world.” Download: “Roadrunner,” “She Cracked” 20. The Hold Steady, Separation Sunday, French Kiss, 2005 Lyrics about Catholic guilt and drug abuse: a timeless combination If Johnny Rotten was raised on classic rock in Midwestern mall parking lots and looked more like a CPA, he could be Craig Finn, whose band treats the sounds of Bruce Springsteen and Hüsker Dü like they’re the most natural double bill in the world. Download: “Your Little Hoodrat Friend,” “How a Resurrection Really Feels” 19. Sleater-Kinney, Dig Me Out, Kill Rock Stars, 1997 Riot grrrls show the dudes how to kick butt and mean it As pissed as the Clash and as joyously poppy as the Go-Go’s, the Portland, Oregon, trio had more faith in the world-remaking power of rocking out than any band of the ’90s. In a time when “slacker irony” was all the rage, screaming demon Corin Tucker’s fiery passion made the cool kids look cowardly. Download: “Dig Me Out,” “Words and Guitar” 18. Joy Division, Unkwon Pleasures, Factory, 1971 Most depressing band ever to use the word joy in their name In keeping with their moniker (slang for a Nazi-concentration-camp brothel), Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis played out an Everyman’s flailing attempt to find human warmth and connection in an emotional wasteland. Yet despite the menacing metallic echoes, the band’s melodic drama made his Kafkaesque squirming positively heroic. Wallowing was never so inspiring. Download: “Disorder,” “Interzone” 17. The White Stripes, White Blood Cells, Sympathy for the Record Industry, 2001 Minimal band, maximal sound Jack and Meg White’s third record transformed them from garage revivalists to saviors of rock. Its secret is that it aims high — Jack’s trying for nothing less than a place in the classic-rock canon — and they pull it off with the absolute economy of means they picked up from electric blues. Download: “Fell in Love With a Girl,” “Little Room” 16. Slint, Spideland, Touch And Go, 1991 They practiced until they got very skilled, and apparently quite depressed Mathematic time signatures? Uncool. A song about a depressed sailor, based on Coleridge’s The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner? Mega uncool — unless you’re Louisville, Kentucky’s Slint, whose knotty, amebic tempos and steely guitar rumble engulfed their songs’ distraught heroes. Download: “Breadcrumb Trail,” “Good Morning Captain” 15. X, Wild Gift, Slash, 1981 Los Angeles punks make a record that reads like a great pulp novel Thrift-store poets in black leather jackets, singer-bassist John Doe and his soon-to-be ex-wife Exene Cervenka set stories of love on the rocks against the City of Angels’s skeezy backdrop. Billy Zoom’s rockabilly switchblade guitar made the heavy subject matter sizzle. Download: “We’re Desperate,” “In This House That I Call Home” 14. De La Soul, 3 Feet High and Rising, Tommy Boy, 1989 Suburban fans of Johnny Cash and Schoolhouse Rock invent indie rap As their contemporaries were declaring themselves “hard as hell” (Run-D.M.C.) or plotting revolutions (Public Enemy), these complicated Long Islanders came out of the gate with cryptic jokes and Day-Glo flowers, while producer Prince Paul took sampling to obscure new realms. Download: “The Magic Number,” “Me, Myself and I” 13. Hüsker Dü, Zen Arcade, SST, 1984 Hardcore warriors dive-bomb *psychedelic pop A concept double LP about a runaway kid’s heartbreak? By a hardcore band? This Minneapolis trio’s fiery plunge into arty psychedelia was risky. But both Bob Mould and Grant Hart had enormous range as songwriters, and their idea of “arty psychedelia” was still hammeringly intense. Download: “Something I Learned Today,” “What’s Going On” 12. Dinosaur J., You’re Living All Over Me, SST, 1987 Ugly, lonely and blissfully loud These long-haired Massachusetts punks couldn’t talk to girls — they could barely even talk to one another — so they poured all their angst and longing into these sludgy, warbling jams. And it turned out that frontman J Mascis was hiding his love of Neil Young–style songcraft under all that volume. Download: “Little Fury Things,” “Tarpit” 11. Minutemen, Double Nickels on the Dime, SST, 1984 Lefty hardcore, supersized The 45-song masterpiece from this awesomely unglamorous trio of self-described SoCal “corndogs” spews revelations in the disjointed babble of Everydude confusion and rage. Bighearted, beefy D. Boon rifles through punk, folk, jazz, a Steely Dan cover and the Jackass theme song as if trying to encompass the whole world. A year later he’d die in a van accident. Download: “Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing,” “History Lesson — Part II” 10. The Smiths, The Smiths, Rough Trade, 1984 Wusses of the world, unite! Guess what, boys: It’s OK to be miserable. That’s the lesson to be drawn from this debut, wherein guitarist Johnny Marr jangles merrily and Morrissey swoons like a heartbroken lady-in-waiting whose corset is too tight. It set the lilac-scented stage for years of sexless yearning that would follow. Download: “This Charming Man,” “Hand in Glove” 9. Big Star, Third/Sister Lovers, PVC, 1978 Ex–teen idol makes nervous breakdowns something to aspire to Alex Chilton is indie rock’s first folk hero, and this is his most mythic moment. Raggedly gorgeous, his band’s third album is full of weary power-pop, shaky guitar and piano chords that seem less played than slumped on. Proof that “perfection” is overrated. Download: “O, Dana,” “Take Care” 8. My Bloody Valentine, Loveless, Creation, 1991 The gold standard of shoegazing Kevin Shields’s warm, lavishly detailed torrents of guitar noise and Bilinda Butcher’s androgynous purr spawned a generation of followers. Download: “Soon,” “Only Shallow” 7. The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground, MGM, 1969 The original indie band? Sure Lou Reed, a shades-wearing, heroin-liking poet of urban doom, traded wailing amps for clear, pastoral beauty on the VU’s third album, opening up his cold New York heart to sing about the search for salvation in a fallen world. Download: “Beginning to See the Light,” “Pale Blue Eyes” 6. Arcade Fire, Funeral, Merge, 2004 Indie rock’s Max Fischer Players Throughout this Montreal troupe’s debut, cataclysms (snowstorms, blackouts) set the stage for Win Butler’s fantasies and nightmares of adolescent freedom. There are multipart chorales and metaphors purpler than Barney, but the spirit is pure punk. Download: “Rebellion (Lies),” “Neighborhood #2 (Laika)” 5. Pixies, Surfer Rosa, 4AD, 1988 In a playful way, one of Kurt Cobain’s favorite bands was as crazy as he was The frumpy Bostonians had psychotic surf guitars, surrealist sex-starved shrieking and clangorous, eardrum-punishing noise. But their full-length debut also cranked out tune after tune of bizarre bubblegum fun. The loud-quiet-loud dynamics and Black Francis’s warped-teen scream rattled walls, but bassist-vocalist Kim Deal’s chalky, cheery singing added the right pinch of cuteness. Download: “Bone Machine,” “Gigantic” 4. R.E.M., Mumur, I.R.S., 1983 With jangly riffs and emotive mumbling, Georgians invent college rock Coming in like a radio station from a strange, faraway land (Athens, Georgia), R.E.M.’s full-length debut arrived just as postpunk was dead-ending into arty weirdness and dopey new wave. The songs were often downright beautiful, and Michael Stipe’s impassioned mush-mouthing injected emotions besides “hate” and “alienation” into underground rock, even if you had absolutely no idea what he was saying. Download: “Radio Free Europe,” “Perfect Circle” 3. The Replacements, Let It Be, Twin/Tone, 1984 Booze! Boners! Insanely great underdog punk songs! Spraying pathos like Bud from a longneck, these Minneapolis fuck-ups hurled themselves through a garbled mess of hardcore, hair-of-the-dog metal and DTs piano ballads and emerged like wobbly conquistadors. Credit Paul Westerberg’s dumbfoundingly great songcraft: “Unsatisfied” can still spur catharsis (and occasionally binge drinking) in even the numbest of underachievers. Download: “Unsatisfied,” “Answering Machine” 2. Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation, Blast First/Enigma, 1988 Arty New York punks hallucinate a youth revolution with de-tuned guitars If Slanted and Enchanted was indie’s Sgt. Pepper’s, this was its version of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Electric Ladyland: a double-LP psych-out that exploded like a car bomb. Befitting Reagan-era Manhattan, its acid punk is bad-trippy. But original MILF Kim Gordon made it sexy, and its majestic, alien-transmission guitar sound shaped a generation (see Pavement). Download: “Teen Age Riot,” “Silver Rocket” 1. Pavement, Slanted and Enchanted, Matador, 1992 The album that lit the quietest pop-cultural explosion ever Forming after college in Stockton, California, recording in their crazy, 40-something drummer’s home studio, Pavement were low-key geniuses casually turning the random noises in their heads into pop perfection. Eighties indie rock often felt like a safe space for desperate castoffs. These were well-adjusted suburban boys from good schools; they seemed drawn underground because they loved the sounds, not because they needed the subculture. The casual vibe gave their music a sense of style and grace, a detachment that felt like freedom. Singer-guitarist Stephen Malkmus hummed alluringly opaque poesy like, “Lies and betrayals/Fruit-covered nails/Electricity and lust” in songs that mixed the screwed-up buzz of English art-punk with the easy catchiness of ’70s am radio. Slanted sounded cheaply made, but the elegant, layered guitar static and crosscutting melodies were lovingly pastiched, like a hip-hop record. Sad but sexy, breakup-tape dramatic but leisurely and fun, it came out of nowhere and touched a nerve, quickly selling 100,000 copies and inspiring scores of bands to strive for a similar mix of beauty and brains. Indie rock’s insular scene and harsh sounds often scared people away. Pavement said in their tossed-off, übercool way: Forget that, let’s party. Download: “Summer Babe (Winter Version),” “Trigger Cut/Wounded Kite at :17,” “Here”

Cool. I used to live there but due to hurricanes and other mitigating factors we had to sell our family home along the Intracoastal Waterway in Cedar Point a year or so ago. That doesn't stop me from missing it incredibily though. Funny thing about that area, singer Ryan Adams hails from right up the road in Jacksonville (aka "Jacksonhell") but you'd be hard pressed to ever find many people around there that have ever heard of him.

Dude looks like a vampire.

From Paste: Dylan, Jack White, others finish Hank songs Writer: Josh Jackson Bob Dylan is heading up a project to have several artists write music and record some of Hank Williams' final lyrics, according to Steppin' In It bassist Dominic Suchyta, who played on one of the tracks. "This project started when Bob Dylan acquired the `lost' Hank Williams songs," Suchyta tells Paste. "Essentially, the lyric sheets Hank died with in his briefcase. Jack is my oldest friend, we talk on occasion and he asked me to come down and record. Dylan had contacted him to see if he'd like to finish some of these tunes." White recorded the song at Blackbird Studios in Nashville with engineer Joe Chiccarelli, Suchyta on upright bass, Carla Azar (Autolux) on drums, Donny Herron (Bob Dylan, BR549) on 8-string guitar and Dean Fertita (Raconteurs, Waxwings) on acoustic guitar. "We did the session in one long day," Suchyta says of the secret taping, "live in a circle with some mics around—much like Hank would have." They recorded an unfinished Williams song called "You Know That I Know." "No one has heard it as it was a Hank Williams lyric sheet that Jack put to music and edited a bit," says Suchyta. "Jack was sent most of or all of the unfinished tunes and picked this one to finish. We listened to quite a bit of Hank while I was down there and sat around the two of us playing our favorite Hank tunes, but the song was done when I got there. I think Jack just ingested a bunch of Hank Williams and this is what came out of him." Suchyta says that Dylan didn't record with White that day, "but I wouldn't put it past either of them. They seem to be cut from the same cloth, sort of misplaced Midwestern brothers. I do know Jack has joined him on stage quite a bit and joined him for his XM radio show. When we were high school teenagers, we recorded quite a few Dylan tunes on our old 4-track reel machine. I remember having a nice version of `Masters Of War' on some cassette somewhere. Jack played drums and guitar, I played bass and guitar." The entire participant list is still under wraps. "No doubt Dylan recorded a tune for it with the Modern Times sessions," Suchya posits. "I've also heard through the grapevine that Willie Nelson and Norah Jones are involved, but like I said this is a shot in the dark. It's been an interesting project in that sense. I'm a huge fan of Hank Williams and was moved to hear what Jack had to contribute."

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/articl...t_id=1003677162 Dylan Reworks 'Hard Rain's' For Spanish Expo Bob Dylan Howell Llewellyn, Madrid Bob Dylan has recorded a new version of his 1963 classic " A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" exclusively for the water-themed Expo Zaragoza 2008 world fair, to be held in the northern Spanish city of Zaragoza between June 14-Sept. 14, 2008. And he has chosen multi-platinum EMI-signed band Amaral, from Zaragoza, to record a version of the song in Spanish. The two versions will form part of a promo campaign for Expo Zaragoza 2008, which includes a TV spot which begins airing Dec. 17. More than 100 countries have confirmed their attendance at the Expo, which organizers expect will gather some 5 million visitors over three months. It is unclear if either Dylan or Amaral will perform in Zaragoza during the world fair. Expo Zaragoza president Roque Gistau says he was "delighted" that Dylan has offered his voice and face as the sound and image of the world fair, whose theme is "Water and Sustainable Development". He described Dylan's contribution, which includes the singer's spoken comments in English on the importance of clean water across the world, as "a gift of one of the songs that best reflects [Dylan's] vindicative spirit". Dylan representative Johnna Jackson was at the Madrid presentation with Gistau and Amaral representative Manuel Notario, who said Amaral was already working on the recording. Amaral performed as the support band on a Dylan tour of Spain a few years ago. Jackson says, "Bob Dylan chose the song personally and did a unique and original version for this project. He feels very proud to be able to take part." Dylan was this year awarded the Prince of Asturias award for the Arts, Spain's equivalent to the Nobel prize, although he was unable to attend the Oct. 26 award ceremony in the Asturian capital of Oviedo, northern Spain. ----------------------------------------------------------- See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTjSFRW_icE

Most fans seem to attribute that to the loss of Marc Ford.

http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A164688 BY GRAYSON CURRIN Blind Melon in 2007: Playing the old stomping grounds It was the winter of 1991, and Chapel Hill bassist Stu Cole got a phone call from California. A music manager and band scout for Capitol Records had just signed a young Los Angeles group named Blind Melon. He'd sent them to North Carolina, and now they needed something. Back in Los Angeles, Blind Melon—just boys from Indiana, Mississippi and Pennsylvania—had struggled with writing its first album amid the temptations of the big city. Frontman Shannon Hoon, a high school friend of and collaborator with Axl Rose, was getting in trouble. Blind Melon had been in Los Angeles long enough to get tired of it and mired in it. They needed to get out of town. Chapel Hill, they'd heard, had a good music scene. Guitarist Christopher Thorn and the band's manager flew east, but they couldn't find an affordable house big enough for the band and its gear. They drove to Durham and wound up on Trinity Avenue. The two-story house at 926 W. Trinity could be theirs for $1,000 a month. They took it. But now the band was in Durham in the middle of winter, living in a place they'd come to call the Sleepyhouse. They had no real friends. They had their instruments, a record contract, a soundman and girlfriends. But what they really needed was weed. Their manager knew Cole, then in the Chicken Wire Gang, through a series of record industry showcases he had asked Cole to play. Cole got the call. "He said, 'Look, I just signed this band, and they've come down there to finish this album. Can you get them some pot?'" remembers Cole, laughing. "So he says, 'So, take as much pot as you can get to this address in Durham.' I thought he was crazy. I told him I wasn't born yesterday." But Cole eventually relented, gathered what he could find and headed to Durham that night. When he knocked on the door, five heads peered out, hoping the right guy had arrived. Cole and Blind Melon became fast friends. During those few formative months, Blind Melon left Durham for two reasons—to play their weekly show in Raleigh at The Brewery and to hang out with Cole and his friends at another local band stand, Chapel Hill's legendary Yellow House. "We were hanging out with those guys, Chicken Wire Gang, at their house, the Yellow House," says Thorn, suddenly remembering that Blind Melon even calls Yellow House by name in "Sleepyhouse," the ninth song off of the debut they were working on in Durham. "They were all super musicians—playing banjos, guitars, stand-up basses. And they were great people. When you got out of Los Angeles, you found musicians that didn't care about getting record deals. It was a breath of fresh air." Indeed, Thorn remembers an idyllic winter in Durham the year before Blind Melon's debut album and its slightly psychedelic hit, "No Rain," made them famous. They barely left the house, choosing instead to stay inside and "smoke pot and play music all day." Thorn says Hoon lined the walls in his bedroom with tinfoil to keep as much daylight out as possible: "As if we weren't vampires enough. As it was, we weren't waking up until 2 o'clock in the afternoon. But he shut out every bit of light." Thorn is romantic about the time Blind Melon spent in Durham, but he admits that was the whole point. Blind Melon's members had a common devotion to The Band, and Thorn says that quintet's time in a Woodstock house called Big Pink in the late '60s had always seemed like such a perfect arrangement. That music was rich, and Blind Melon was inspired by their familial quality. "We rehearsed in the house and recorded in the house. We became a much better band in the house, and that's where we really developed our sound," says Thorn. "We learned how we played together. It was band training camp." But living in Sleepyhouse made them more than a band. It made them friends. "I remember just getting along," Thorn says. "There were periods of time that the band was—well, fighting is too strong of a word—but we weren't getting along so well. That was not one of them. We were hanging out and being brothers at that point." Tough times were ahead for Blind Melon, and those formative days gilded them for the road. Thorn says living in the Sleepyhouse prepared them for spending the next year in a touring van, almost like a trial marriage. It also kept the rest of the band together after Hoon died in 1995 of a cocaine overdose in New Orleans. Blind Melon released one more record, Nico, in 1996 and continued playing until 1999. They all kept in touch, and Thorn started a recording studio with bassist Brad Smith in Los Angeles. Last year, Smith and Thorn were asked to record a young rock singer named Travis Warren. Slowly, the idea of reforming Blind Melon around Warren—who had idolized Hoon and Blind Melon in the early '90s—made sense. The same band who entered Sleepyhouse in 1991 entered the studio in 2007, with Warren respectfully taking Hoon's place. They've finished a record, and now they're hitting the road: "When we were touring in the past, people knew the hit or a couple of songs. But, because of the amount of time we were away, they know all the songs, and they're singing along. It's been incredible." Blind Melon plays Lincoln Theatre Sunday, Dec. 2, at 8 p.m. with Brad Benson. Tickets are $13-$15. For more on Blind Melon's time in Durham, visit the excellent fan site www.beemelon.com.

The annual Christmas flotilla held on the Intracoastal Waterway in Swansboro, North Carolina. This year's flotilla was held Friday, November 23rd.

http://flagpole.com/Music/CalendarPick/Und...ers2/2007-11-28 “Underneath the Covers II” Saturday, December 1 @ 40 Watt Club Patterson Hood Mike White Last year saw the 40 Watt host “Gimme Shelter” and “Finest Worksongs” benefits, when Athens acts tackled the Rolling Stones and R.E.M., respectively, and the 2007 installment of “Gimme Shelter” took on the tunes of Neil Young. The “Underneath the Covers II” benefit show continues another tradition started last year, and numerous local bands will assume the musical identities of past titans. 2006 saw Madeline Adams work up a set of Lucinda Williams numbers, The Late B.P. Helium ram through the back catalog of Wings and Paul McCartney, and Dark Meat turn The Stooges’ album Raw Power inside out. This time around, to raise funds on World AIDS Day, you’ve got another offering of local variety and entertainment. Hip-hop crew Deaf Judges teams up with electro agitators Pegasuses-XL to channel the Beastie Boys, and Dead Confederate gets heavy and guitar-centric to knock out some Sonic Youth sounds. Still, Small Voice & the Joyful Noise are Elvis Costello & the Attractions, and power pop act The High Caliber plays its first set in more than a year, reappearing as the Jesus & Mary Chain. Drive-By Trucker Patterson Hood gets reborn in the USA as Bruce Springsteen. (It’s Hood’s second benefit show of the week, as he’s also at Farm 255 on Wednesday, Nov. 28 to raise funds for Robert Osborne’s Classic Film Festival). The $8 tickets are available in advance at both SchoolKids Records downtown and at the Georgia Square Mall’s Belk MAC counter. Everything gets going at 9 p.m. All money raised goes to benefit the local organization AIDS Athens. Chris Hassiotis

http://www.nme.com/news/bob-dylan/32804 The figure who inspired the "Mr Jones" protagonist in Bob Dylan's classic 'Ballad Of A Thin Man' has died. Jeffrey Owen Jones, a film professor at the Rochester Institute Of Technology, has been regularly identified as the subject of the song, which appeared on 1965's 'Highway 61 Revisited'. Jones was 63 and died of lung cancer at the beginning of November. According to the widely held theory, Jones inspired the song after interviewing Dylan while he was an intern at 'Time' magazine. The pair spoke at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, just ahead of the singer's legendary performance where he went electric. The opening lines of the song go: "You walk into the room/With your pencil in your hand/You see somebody naked/And you say, "Who is that, man?"/ You try so hard/But you don't understand/Just what you'll say/When you get home/ Because something is happening here/ But you don't know what it is/Do you, Mister Jones?" Years after the song appeared, Jones told Rolling Stone he was actually honoured to have been written about by Dylan. "I was thrilled - in the tainted way I suppose a felon is thrilled to see his name in the newspaper," he wrote. "I was awed too that Dylan had so accurately read my mind. I resented the caricature but had to admit that there was something happening there at Newport in the summer of 1965, and I didn't know what it was." According to Editor And Publisher, Jones' passing has so far only been picked up by his local paper the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. They reported that since his immortalisation in song, Jones had excelled an athletics before living Uruguay and Spain where he wrote and directed films. He then returned to America where he became a teacher and lecturer, and also worked for CBS producing award-winning educational films. His sister Pamela Jones told the paper that "Dylan didn't paint a vignette of my brother that one would necessarily be proud of. But I think my brother was in the middle of history-making." Although it is widely thought that Jones inspired the song, there have been other candidates for the protagonist, including a British journalist named Max Jones, who Dylan has mentioned himself.

http://www.gigwise.com/news/39031/portishe...bum-on-march-31 by Scott Colothan A release date has been set for Portishead’s eagerly anticipated third album. The as-yet-untitled release will be with us on March 31, according to a release schedule Gigwise has seen from Island Records. As previously reported, the band finished recording the album at the end of October and have spent recent weeks mastering it. When the album finally sees the light of day, it will be the much lauded outfit’s first release in a decade, following 1994’s ‘Dummy’ and their eponymous second album in 1998. Meanwhile, Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons and Adrian Utley are curating All Tomorrows Parties’ Nightmare Before Christmas in Minehead from December 7-9, featuring the likes of Ladytron, Black Mountain, Autolux, Julian Cope and Malcolm Middleton.

The Return of Led Zeppelin Behind the scenes at the rehearsals for the biggest show of the year -- plus talk of a tour. DAVID FRICKE On June 10th of this year, at 2:30 in the afternoon, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin — guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant and bassist John Paul Jones — met in a rehearsal space to play some songs. It was the first time they had been in the same room with instruments since their rough four-song set at Led Zeppelin's 1995 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This time, the stakes were higher: to see if they had the strength, empathy and appetite to truly perform as Led Zeppelin again, in their first full concert since the death of drummer John Bonham in 1980. The location of the rehearsal, somewhere in England, is still a zealously guarded secret. In interviews a few weeks before Led Zeppelin's December 10th show at London's 02 arena — a benefit tribute to the late Ahmet Ertegun, the co-founder of Atlantic Records — Page, Plant and Jones claim they can't remember the date, what they played or even how the idea of reuniting in honor of Ertegun, a close friend and mentor during and after the band's years on the label, came up. They all agree that playing together again, after so long, was a momentous, emotional occasion. "It was immediate," Page says brightly, sporting a small splint on his left pinkie, the result of a fracture suffered in a fall at home that forced a pause in rehearsals and the rescheduling of the concert, originally set for November 26th. "Everybody went in with a will to work and to enjoy it. It was a delight." Plant recalls "a lot of big smiles," wearing one himself. The day was "cathartic and therapeutic. No pressure, no weight." Jones claims he "didn't have any doubts. Someone picked a song. We got through it. And it rocked." But Bonham's son, Jason, can tell you the exact date and hour Led Zeppelin became a band again, because he was there, taking over for his dad. "They might not know what time it was," he says of the other three, "but I know." For him, it was "a real lump in the throat." "I didn't think there would be an instant sound," says Jason, 41, currently a member of Foreigner and now a father of two himself. "I thought, 'It's going to take some time.' " He was wrong. The band went right into the slow, dark fury of "No Quarter," from 1973's Houses of the Holy. "When the riff came in, there was this look that went around. It was brilliant." Next, the four hit the desert-caravan march of "Kashmir," from 1975's Physical Graffiti. "Then we stopped. Jimmy said, 'Can you give me a hug?' And Robert shouted, 'Yeah, sons of thunder!' " Finally, at the end of that day, Jason says, "They said, 'When we get together next . . .' " He laughs. "I thought, 'You mean I get another chance at this?' " — Excerpt From Issue 1041

50 Tunng - Good Arrows 49 Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights 48 Oakley Hall - I'll Follow You 47 Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbals 46 Manu Chao - La Radiolina 45 Bettye LaVette - The Scenes Of The Crime 44 Beirut - The Flying Club Cup 43 Explosions In The Sky - All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone 42 Mavis Staples - We'll Never Turn Back 41 Dr. Dog - We All Belong 40 Ian Hunter - Shrunken Heads 39 Patty Griffin - Children Running Through 38 Eleni Mandell - Miracle Of Five 37 Rufus Wainwright - Release The Stars 36 Bright Eyes - Cassadaga 35 Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam 34 Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger 33 St. Vincent - Marry Me 32 Kevin Drew - Spirit If... 31 Robert Wyatt - Comicopera 30 Grinderman - Grinderman 29 Kings Of Leon - Because Of The Times 28 Grace Potter & The Nocturnals - This Is Somewhere 27 of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? 26 Steve Earle - Washington Square Serenade 25 Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter - Like, Love, Lust And the Open Halls Of The Soul 24 M.I.A. - Kala 23 Bill Callahan - Woke On A Whaleheart 22 Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Living With The Living 21 The National - Boxer 20 Rilo Kiley - Under The Blacklight 19 Bruce Springsteen - Magic 18 Georgie James - Places 17 The Good, The Bad & The Queen - The Good, The Bad & The Queen 16 Wilco - Sky Blue Sky 15 The New Pornographers - Challengers 14 The Shins - Wincing The Night Away 13 Avett Brothers - Emotionalism 12 Devendra Banhart - Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon 11 The White Stripes - Icky Thump 10 Jason Isbell - Sirens Of The Ditch 09 Neil Young - Chrome Dreams II 08 Arcade Fire - Neon Bible 07 Radiohead - In Rainbows 06 Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga 05 Feist - The Reminder 04 Future Clouds & Radar - Future Clouds & Radar 03 Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog 02 Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin 01 Okkervil River - The Stage Names

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/articl...t_id=1003678378 Supergrass Jonathan Cohen, N.Y. U.K. rock outfit Supergrass will release its new single, "Diamond Hoo Ha Man," Jan. 14 internationally on 7-inch vinyl. A live version of the cut can be downloaded from Supergrass.com. An as-yet-untitled new album, produced by Nick Launay, will arrive in March via Parlophone. The set is the follow-up to 2005's "Road to Rouen," which debuted at No. 9 on the U.K. album chart. Next month, Supergrass will return to live duty with a Dec. 9 appearance at XFM's Winter Wonderland at London's Brixton Academy, and a Dec. 20-21 stand at Oxford's Town Hall. During those dates, bassist Mick Quinn, who is recovering from a broken back suffered in a sleepwalking accident, will be replaced by Charly Coombes, the brother of Supergrass principals Gaz and Rob Coombes.

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/articl...t_id=1003678691 Greg Dulli Jonathan Cohen, N.Y. Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan have wrapped the debut album from their long-in-the-works Gutter Twins project. Due March 4 via Sub Pop, "Saturnalia" features guest appearances by Joseph Arthur, Martina Topley-Bird, Queens Of The Stone Age's Troy Van Leeuwen and the touring band from Dulli's Twilight Singers. The Gutter Twins concept has been alive since late 2003, and the first two songs the group wrote, "All Misery" and "The Body," are present on "Saturnalia." But the majority of the material was finished this year, often with Dulli in New Orleans and Lanegan in Los Angeles. "I'd send them to him and he'd mess around with them," Dulli tells Billboard.com of working with longtime friend Lanegan. "But whenever we were in the same room, that's when the lion's share of the material was realized, because we actually could work it out." Lanegan contributed two of his own songs to the project, "Who Will Lead Us" and "Bette Noir." Hooking up with Sub Pop was an easy decision for the artists, who were both signed to the label earlier in their careers (Lanegan with Screaming Trees, Dulli with Afghan Whigs). "It was the perfect situation," Dulli says. "The way it presented itself, it was sort of the classic offer you couldn't refuse." The Gutter Twins have lined up five shows for next year, beginning Feb. 14 in New York and including a March 1 set in San Francisco as part of the Noise Pop festival. "We'll see how the first round goes and that will dictate what we do from there on out," Dulli says. "I think we have an exciting show. We certainly have a lot of material that we could cull from and stretch the set. We're also very fond of interpretations." Here are the Gutter Twins' tour dates: Feb. 14: New York (Bowery Ballroom) Feb. 19: Paris (Maroquinerie) Feb. 21: London (Koko) Feb. 23: Amsterdam (Melkweg) March 1: San Francisco (Bimbo's; Noise Pop festival)

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/articl...t_id=1003678509 Carlos Santana Gary Graff, Detroit After three successful albums of high-profile collaborations, Carlos Santana is preparing for a different endeavor for 2008. The guitarist and bandleader is teaming up with producer Bill Laswell for "The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost," a three-CD set Santana tells Billboard.com will reflect his myriad musical influences. "We still love (John) Coltrane and Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye," he says, "so that music is gonna get in there. And Paco de Lucia ... very Spanish." The base group for the recording will be a trio of Santana, his longtime keyboardist Chester "CT" Thompson and Narada Michael Walden on drums. He's also planning to incorporate guests such as Wayne Shorter, Pharoah Sanders, Kenny Garrett and others. "I have yet to do a trio band," Santana notes, "so this is my opportunity to do kind of like a Tony Williams trio thing. It's a trio with other colors; we're gonna bring other musicians in, singers and stuff like that." Santana hopes to have the album finished and out by next summer, but no firm release date is set. He recently recapped his career highlights with "Ultimate Santana," an Arista set that includes material from throughout his career and particularly focuses on his "Supernatural," "Shaman" and "All That I Am" albums. "It's kind of like a family reunion; all the songs are either sisters or brothers or children," Santana says of the collection. "All I can think of is God is very generous with an incredible, long life and a lot of opportunities for the music that I play and the musicians that I share it with. For me it's a positive. It's nothing but a win-win situation."

I imagine there's no Michael since he's not "rock n' roll".

With few exceptions practically every artist I've ever listed on my year end best of lists are "indie" but I'm going here by artists that record for independent labels, not "indie" as a classification of a musical style. I also narrow my year end best of lists down to 10, how do you know those artists that didn't make the cut aren't "indie" as you define it? I know of one very notable exception right off the top of my head (though I'm sure there's more) which is Nada Surf. Again, I'm not sure what any of this has to do with the topic of this thread, it's only more of your meaningless and self-serving nitpicking which grows increasingly tiresome with each one of your posts.

I'm not surprised to see Joe there at all. He knows there's money to be made whether or not Henley is a hypocrite. I just hope he sees fit to do more work with The James Gang during the Eagles' downtime, something he has already positively commented on.

Prior to Sammy, Patty Smyth of Scandal was under consideration for the lead singer slot in Van Halen. I can't help but wonder what direction they would have gone in with a female singer out front. As for Sammy, I don't think he was ever considered to be some sort of David Lee Roth type person onstage or was expected to somehow follow in Dave's footsteps as an over the top frontman in the same way Dave was. If anything, I gathered they (Ed and Alex particularly) had had enough of Dave's antics and fully expected to reign in that aspect of Van Halen by hiring someone like Hagar who had a history of being a dynamic frontman both in his solo career and with Montrose. If they were looking for "David Lee Roth, Jr." they went with the wrong guy. As for the Hagar era of Van Halen not compromising musically, I have to disagree there as they most certainly did and on nearly all fronts. With Hagar out front they gave in to the formulaic radio sound of the time and became known more for their ballads than their rockers, something which could never be said of DLR-era Van Halen.