Given how much ground reggae's covered over the past twenty years or so (how many rivers it's crossed, if you wanna get all blogger rock-crit in your phrasings, which I can't recommend, stuff'll rot your teeth an' all), how come roots stuff doesn't sound corny? Not in the way that trad-folk does, or 50's-revival, or any other genre bound in time, which is to say, all genres. I know, I know, "great music is timeless," but the jury's still out on whether that assessment applies to pop songs, and certainly history plays with the sound of pop music like a kid goin' ape on a Mr. Potato Head. So why, when I'm listening to Sugar Minott, do I just hear flat-out greatness without all the this-was-a-long-time-ago postmodern fizz? Is it just the familiar exotic weight-allowance that keeps alien things current? I don't think so, anyhow; certainly there are other other-cultural musics which, when they've dated, sound that way to me.

Just askin'. Listen to Sugar Minott if you get a chance. Joy to all the ravers for you are the future.

Most exciting release news of the year is that the first of May will bring, along with the completely awesome month of May obviously, a new album from Barbara Morgenstern. (Warning: her site is flash-heavy and scroll-impaired, though it may work fine in IE. Why an electronic artist would "optimize" her site for the highly useless, almost-quaintly-obsolete-if-it-weren't-so-damned-pernicious IE is completely beyond me and frankly pisses me off a little.) Her last album, Nichts Muss, is one of my favorite albums of this century so far and sounds especially sweet through headphones in motel rooms in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, if this morning's experiences can be taken as generally indicative of things.

One of the most paradigm-snapping effects of the web has been its effect on the complex relationships between artists, critics, and the broader audience. Music fans were some of the first people to hop online; I remember running across a fansite for Thin Lizzy as early as 1994, and a John Hiatt one, too, if I remember right. (Another site I can think of has been continuously online since 1994, making it one of the longest-running fansites on the web, ahem ahem.)

Shit I Am Totally Bummed Out About, pt. 1: ok there's this new Aura Noir album, so utterly necro and cult that they even use words like "necro" in their lyrics. I know 'cause I read the lyrics to the opening track; they were right there in the high-gloss booklet. By the end of that skim-through, I had the general idea, and I just sat back to enjoy some incredibly pure blackened thrash.

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I'm just now getting around to listening to Liege and Lief for the first time ever, and wow, is it ever good. Makes a feller wanna use words like "mindblowing" and stuff. Thank you, Douglas, for your occasional effusings (effusions?) about this record over the years; the more thick-headed among us need to be told something several times before it sticks. I have more than a passing familiarity with the tropes Fairport Convention's interrogating here—they're sorta standard fare at the table where I sup, so to speak—so it's all the more thrilling for me. The number of "holy fuck" moments are startlingly high here: the obvious parallel for me is the Allman Brothers right around the same period, though everybody else on the planet may already know this. Next up in our Obvious Realizations series: Hydrate Yourself...With Water!

It's not every day that you get to scratch seven or eight years' worth of poison-oak caliber itch, but that's exactly what happened last night on the first date of my three-week spring tour. It was Charleston, South Carolina, and Charlie McAlister'd copped the opening slot. Charlie first came to my attention when he started sending tapes to the greatly-missed Car In Car Disco Product label, which dutifully released them; he was a shadowy figure in the cassette underground throughout the mid-nineties, if by "shadowy" you mean "totally cool in a where'd-he-come-from where'd-he-go living-legend kinda mystery guy." His Mississippi Luau album on Catsup Plate is one of my favorite records of all time. (As an aside, let me note that despite my longstanding philosophical opposition to Best Albums of All Time lists, I have got the urge lately to make a list of Them Albums What I'd Generally Consider My Very Favorite Ones Ever, and will probably get around to it sometime in the next year or two.)