I have been a self-admitted concert junkie since about age 12. I have seen somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 shows. I have seen 11 since the last time I felt moved to write something here. Frustratingly, I am now moved to write and yet haven’t the slightest idea how to express what it is I want to say. Perhaps the words, nearly the first, I uttered after the Tom Waits show I saw on Sunday night, are the best place to start: “that was the greatest thing that has ever happened in the history of the world.”

Okay, now…

I have probably taken more shit from people for my lifelong love affair with Counting Crows, and in particular with its frontman Adam Duritz, than for any other of my musical-sins-according-to-music-snobs. It’s never bothered me. Is there what one might refer to as a whiny quality in some of their stuff? Well, yes, I suppose I have to grant that. Have they had sporadic mainstream radio success? Sure. He’s still my favorite singer and—with all due respect to the other approximately 100 acts I’ve seen live—they are just consistently the best live band I’ve seen, second perhaps only to E…

I don’t listen to Bob Dylan as much as I used to; it would be largely impossible to do. From 1993 to 1998 I’m not sure I did anything else, really. Oh, except read all books available about him, see him in concert, and, a couple of times a year, scour Village bootleg shops for all the audio and video I could find (and afford, of course. I can’t even begin to think about how much money I spent on bootlegs pre-internet. Geesh.) In the last decade I have branched out and spent most of my music listening time with…

I just got back from the Verizon Center. I am exhausted. I am covered in sweat. My feet hurt. My back hurts. My throat is sore. I cannot hear anything. (Some of) my faith in humanity has been restored.

I fucking love Bruce Springsteen.

Bruce Springsteen

It’s not always easy being a music fan. Maybe it’s easy being a casual admirer of a particular artist, but it’s rough being a genuine fan. There’s the time and money you put in, of course, but it’s the emotional cost that can really hurt you. I learned this first at 11 or 12, when Axl Rose wore that damned Charles Manson shirt and I had to navigate the tricky cross currents it caused: trying to figure out what I thought of it while still defending the music and the musician I loved. Then, of course, there’s the whole dealing…

So I really like my boys. A cursory look at my top-listened-to artist list will reveal that. Fewer than 10 of my top 50 artists of the last 5 months are women and I think even should my entire music listening history have been scrobbled, the results would be much the same.

Sure, I love the country girls everyone loves (Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline) and the folk girls (Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez), and actually the soul girls too (Dusty Springfield, Aretha Franklin), but never quite as much as their male counterparts. I have really loved Dar Williams and Neko Case,…

Alright, it seems now I've started using this whole journal function, I can't stop…but it's late and I'm wired and elated, having just returned from the hospital where my dear friends just delivered their first child. So, in honor of my becoming a real live surrogate aunt, a quick list of what may or may not, upon further thought, be my top 15 songs about children–some cheerful, some not so cheerful. And yes, the last one is cheating, but it's the song my mother always sang to me as a child, so it's about that for me.

Lord Protect my…

Okay, so I’ve so far resisted the urge to actually write anything here because it feels strange in a way, but I can no longer keep myself from doing it for a very simple reason: I just got home from seeing Josh Ritter live, I really have to talk about it, and rather than hear the bored but obliging “uh huhs” and “rights” from my friends who definitely don’t really want to hear me prattle on about music, I will send it out there and pretend someone who cares is reading…

For those of you who do not yet know…