Take 'Em as They Come

Since I am spending some of this Monday doing housekeeping tasks around my own house, it seems only fitting to do a bit of it here on the blog as well.

First off, the plugin that keeps my LastFM playlist box updated has not been functioning for the better part of a week. It's working now, though, in case you care what I've been listening to.

Second, I'm adding a bunch of links to the blogroll. All of these are sources of good downloadable tunes, good writing, or both.

--Start with Lil' Mike's Last Known Thoughts & Random Recollections, currently the place to go for all things Cheap Trick.

--Proceed thence to Mars Needs Guitars, currently exploring originals and cover versions of songs by the Clash and the Rolling Stones.

--Hie thyself on to The Late Greats, which put up some live tracks from Corinne Bailey Ray, a singer you should know if you like Norah Jones, for example. Her album is currently Number One in the UK and she's starting to get noticed over here now, for good reason.

--Make tracks next to Living in Stereo, where you will learn interesting things. You'll find a superb essay there called "Two Reckonings: Bruce Springsteen and the Voices of Black Women," the sort of writing I'd like to do if I had the intellect and/or the attention span. The essay is actually by Danny Alexander, who wrote it for a Springsteen conference. Speaking of whom . . .

--There's Take Em as They Come, Alexander's blog, currently featuring a post about Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks and the singer Pink as "gangstas." Great stuff.

--Our last blog-stop is Holler If Ya Hear Me. Any blog whose contributors number authors Craig Werner and Dave Marsh (and Danny Alexander) is worth my time on a regular basis, and yours, too. The blog publishes a regular list of what its contributors are listening to.

You Go Girls: I have never cared much for the Dixie Chicks. Although I thought "Goodbye Earl" was funny (and found myself mildly surprised that family-values obsessed country radio would embrace it), their mega-selling album Fly has been in my CD player exactly once. I have rarely hated an album so instantly and so completely as that one. Nevertheless, after they made their famously overblown anti-Bush remark, I admired the courage they showed in refusing to back down. They're still refusing. If you have not heard their single "Not Ready to Make Nice," from their new album Taking the Long Way, go to There's Always Someone Cooler Than You and download it now. It's as satisfying a record as you're going to hear all year.