Merry Christmas, from Tom Waits

I saw this over at Aquarium Drunkard. Stop by, and pick up the Neko Case cover as well...

Gluttontastic

I invented a new food today: the bratadilla. Take a bratwurst, but instead of placing it inside a bun, wrap it up in a quesadilla.
It's the type of fantastic that can only exist in the presence of a deep and lazy gluttony.

Theorize

I like the cold. Not the real cold, but the cold here. I like the lower 40s at night, and sitting in the bright sun to take advantage of the day. I reckon I'll head on downtown for some coffee and some sun here in a bit, and make some more progress on Sometimes A Great Notion. About 200 pages in I definitely love the book, but it's a slow read, with constantly shifting points of view.
Then it's on to a holiday party, the first bit of recognition I'm ready to give to the season. That, and tonight the stupid-ass hay rides and hot chocolate stands hit the overly festive rich neighborhood just down the road. I'm not a total bah humbug type, but I can't stand the extra traffic and yank-mammas trying to find parking on the side of the road that stretches the last minute of my drive home from work out to about 10 minutes. Bah.
And then it's on to see The Theory. They're a local band I caught a few months ago doing a damn good acoustic set. I dig their set up - sexy chick singer/guitarist and stoic dudes on bass and drums. The bass player I know as Honeysocks, and the singer Harriet Brown performs solo as well.
The Theory - Meet Me On Saturday
Honeysocks - Dingos Ate My Band

The Unwelcome Guest

I can't let Mr. Chair have all the fun.

Say it ain't so...

And to the surprise of nobody except Roger Clemens' lawyer, the baseball world learned today that at least dozens of players over the past decade have been juiced to the gills.
Since there's absolutely no telling how many home runs, strike outs or early returns from injuries are due to the magic of chemistry, let's just figure that the pitchers and the hitters were more or less even, cheaters or not.
And rather than dwell on what's being called baseball's worst scandal since the Black Sox, or at least its darkest days since the 1994 strike, let's all just celebrate the game, music style.
But first, here's a photograph I have framed in my living room, of Jackie Robinson in the 1952 All-Star Game. Now that's baseball.



First up is a jumpin' swing tribute to Jackie:

Buddy Johnson - Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball

I tracked that one down from Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour, which has a wonderful episode devoted to baseball. And the host even gets into it himself:

Bob Dylan - Take Me Out to the Ballgame

And let's not forget another Minnesota native singing during the Seventh Inning Stretch:

The Hold Steady - Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Baseball ("the one constant through all the years...") doesn't do too bad in the movies either. The Natural and Major League are definitely two of the best, but my favorite has got to be Field of Dreams. It's baseball as magic, as a mythic America, a metaphor for fathers and sons and all that's good about life:

James Earl Jones baseball speech

And I was hoping to leave everybody with Vin Scully's call of the Kirk Gibson home run that won game one of the 1988 World Series, but I had no luck finding it online in audio or video, so instead here's Jack Buck's radio call:

Kirk Gibson - 1988 World Series

Golden Opportunities

My inbox today contained news of a great idea from a great band: Okkervil River is releasing a free covers album via their web site.

The so-called Christmas mixtape, Golden Opportunities, was recorded in bits and pieces while the band was on tour over the last couple years. And aside from a somber taken on their own "Listening to Otis Redding at Home During Christmas," it's all covers, taken from the likes of Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman and Serge Gainsbourg.
What's more interesting, as the first couple listens are starting to indicate and as Will Sheff made clear to Pitchfork, is that the songs chosen are thematically related to the band's latest album.
I see some instances (Joni Mitchell's "The Blonde in the Bleachers") in which the covered songs are direct inspirations for The Stage Names.
Two very interesting parallels are at work here: First, Sheff takes creative and imaginative inspiration from favorite songs in a similar (but subtler) way as he did on Black Sheep Boy. And second, Golden Opportunities functions as a companion to The Stage Names in much the same way that Black Sheep Boy Appendix both thematically extended its predecessor and took the paths less chosen.
Download the nine-song album (along with liner notes and artwork) here.
That Sheff is a careful lyricist is not surprising, but he's also quick on his feet and has a sly wit he doesn't often show. Dig this:
I was talking with drummer Travis Nelson when the band played Club Congress in September (I've been friends with them for several years now) and he was describing the Conan O'Brien show they'd recently played. The nutty Jeff Goldblum was the other guest, and the day before the taping, Sheff rewrote a verse of "Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe," a song filled with movie-related imagery, to reflect Goldblum's illustrious film history. They backed off the idea at the last minute on the advice of management, but the verse emerged shortly afterwards.
At The Independent in San Francisco, Sheff told the tale himself, injecting the verse at the beginning of the song.
Hear it for yourself:
Okkervil River - Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe (Live)
And after downloading Golden Opportunities, check back with Okkervil River's web site Friday, when the band will post answers to fan's questions about the covers.

From whence they came...

Modest Mouse are one of those bands that I had two introductions to - years apart and unrelated - and still took a bit of time to grab on my own.
This, of course, was waaaay back when such was possible, not in the pre-Internet days, but definitely in the pre-everything-we-now-use-the-Internet-for days.
When "Convenient Parking" showed up on a mix tape from Portland, I'd never heard of the band, and if Zia didn't have the album, then in those days I wasn't going to find it.
The band stuck around in my head a bit, but I didn't hear anything else until "Gravity Rides Everything" came in on recommendation when I was living in Phoenix and asking close friends what their five favorite songs were (this of course being the first time I did that, not the much-expanded second time, when I polled 105 people). Freaktown said it reminded him of driving through the hills of his Southern California home at the time.
Ah, and Zia had Modest Mouse this time around. I told Dr. Chung when I bought The Moon & Antarctica, and he said they've been the next big thing for a while (presumably since I first heard and half-ignored them).
Revisiting that progression, I'm interested mostly in the fact that Modest Mouse is probably one of the last bands (at least new, indie-type bands) that I discovered without blogs or myspace, and in the case of "Convenient Parking," without burned CDs, Napster, mp3s, or even the Internet at all.
Word-of-mouth still drives most music discoveries (personally, to be sure, but I'd wager it's a pretty universal truth), but that secondary bit of exploration is exceptionally easy now. And in that regard, I think it's far easier to simply forget where, when or how I pick up that first scrap of information about some new music or other. I can trace Modest Mouse directly to CKB and Freaktown, and countless other bands back to the original friend (or occasionally zine or magazine) source. Not so much with newer stuff. (Iron & Wine a good example there - I can't for the life of me pinpoint a single source or two even. I vaguely remember having a sudden interest, then hearing a number of songs from wherever - most likely illegally - and buying several records in short order. Now I'm a fan all the way.)
This is mostly a roundabout way to start thinking about the Modest Mouse show tomorrow at the Rialto Theatre. It's my first time to catch them live, despite all those years.
And in that spirit, here are some live tracks, recorded for an XFM session:
Modest Mouse - Float On (Live)
Modest Mouse - Ocean Breathes Salty
Modest Mouse - The World At Large

Pat Garrett y Billy the Kid, por Sam Peckinpah

There's nothing quite like watching a movie and seeing Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan speaking in badly dubbed Spanish. Gracias a Dios the Spanish channel doesn't dub the soundtrack.

Da Windy Easy

I had a good conversation the other day with a good friend who's relocated to Chicago. He's one of many and I can't help but think all of my Chicago pals are sort of on the same wavelength -- they're all fighting off that stupid cold wind, they all have the same landmarks day-to-day, they meet up at bars I've never set foot in... It's such a fun city and I definitely need to visit again, hopefully this spring or summer.

But in the meantime, feast on some Chicago tunes:

First up is The Seychelles, a one-man outfit that splits the difference between indie rock and drum'n'bass. Sometimes I hear huge Pavement influences (musically, not vocally), sometimes it's far dancier stuff of a vintage I just don't know. Much of the Seychelles stuff has a great solitary feel that I really dig. It's a guitar/keyboard/drum machine combo that few people do quite so well.
The Seychelles - 13 Hundred Songs, 3 and a half days
The Seychelles - Breakdance at Tiffany's

Next up is Lost Armada, a four-piece that like many others owes a great debt to the Replacements and Neil Young. They can be full-on rowdy or back-porch strummy and do each with plenty of conviction. They've got one EP out this year, but here's an earlier demo track that shows power and songwriting chops. There's no shortage of barroom country/punks who have called the Midwest home, but don't skip over these guys.
Lost Armada - All Light Exchanged For Sight

New & Improved

The staff has put in some work to spiffy up the blog and we're sure you'll love the new look.
Navigation is easier as well and the blog list has been updated (look for more to come).
We'll also be experimenting with some more multimedia content.
On that note, it gives great pleasure to provide this gem, a rare demo by The Swim. Enjoy.
The Swim - Beautiful Endeavor
They're playing Dec. 1 at Che's Lounge, so anyone in Tucson, go on down and check 'em out.

Playgrounds

I just got back from watching Warren Miller's latest film down at the Fox Theatre (isn't it strange that I'd never been there before, then attended two events in three days? Monday's Iron & Wine show was incredible!).
I've long been a fan of his ski and snowboard films, which isn't a surprise considering he basically invented the genre. But for me it's always been more about Miller's narrative abilities and how he infuses his films with a great energy, taken from his simple mantra: If you don't do it this year, you'll be one year older when you do.
I haven't skied in nearly 11 years. Writing that, it kinda pains me that it's been so long. It was a trip during Christmas break my senior year of high school, out to New Mexico with the pop and the bro, to crash with friends in Farmington (shithole!) and venture out to the glorious Wolf Creek and the stuck-on-the-side-of-the-road Hesperus. (Coincidentally, the car-ride hours of that same trip were dominated via headphones by my newly acquired Recovering the Satellites album, which would later offer 'Angels of the Silences,' 'Miller's Angels' and 'A Long December' to Miller's Snowriders 2, the first of his films I'd see on the big screen.)
I was never much good. I could get down the not-too-steep hills just fine, but I was never too daring. What I liked most was zipping down fairly flat ground, not having to turn much, just enveloped in the nearly motionless gliding speed. To me, it was kinetic energy at its most peaceful. There's no other way on Earth to move quite like that, and it's absolutely exhilarating.
I learned at Williams Ski Area, an out-of-the-way mountain that was cheap enough and small enough to allow anybody more than enough runs in a day. There just simply weren't any crowds or lines. I still see that whole ski area in my mind clearly - though from a quick search on the 'Net it's apparently now called Elk Ridge Ski Area. But that map is still the same, and I know exactly what it represents.
I miss the feeling -- but skiing is expensive, and I live in the desert, and just a couple weeks after that last ski trip I blew out my left knee, which still doesn't feel completely strong...
Someday again I'll ski -- and that's the overriding inspiration that Miller's films provide.
But I also take away this tremendous spiritual uplift. The photography is gorgeous, the athletes are the best in the world, but Miller without a doubt captures skiing at its essence, which is the simple fact that it exists outside of day-to-day reality. It's an escape, it's pursued feverishly by people who can't be tied down, whose only drive is to go where there's fresh powder. Fresh powder, probably the most powerfully metaphorical playing field in all of sports. Skiing is exploration and escape -- and you're afforded a good bit of each just sitting there in the theatre.
I've now seen at least five of Miller's films on the annual big-screen tour (out of 58 total). It's just a ball of fun (though expensive -- I lucked into a free $20 ticket tonight). Playground was this year's title. There's little better for a pick-me-up as the winter arrives than getting a dose of Miller's quirky philosophy and get-up-and-go mentality. He's truly inspirational, even if you've never touched snow in your life. All he asks is that you grab a little adventure in your life.
See you next year, same time, same place...

Solid proof that Carson Daly is Hollywood's biggest douchebag

I'd long suspected as much, but now this proves it: Daly to defy writers strike.
That asshole isn't worth the weight of his smarmy grin without writers. Since when did an inexplicable habit of bagging starlets before they washed up earn people their own TV shows?

Seriously though. Six gigantic multinational corporations are trying to suffocate thousands upon thousands of hard-working writers even more than they've been for years. Support the writers.

Back to Back to Back to Back

Just try cramming more live music into a weekend. (I know it can be done, but it's definitely a special case.)

Start off Thursday with the Swim opening for Ted Leo & The Pharmacists. Watch your friends on stage opening for one of their heroes. Then enjoy the fantastic, fast and frenetic songs of one of rock's great unheralded songwriters.

Chill at home Friday before heading out to catch another of the rare Fourkiller Flats shows. Wish you had a ride home, knowing that whiskey drinking is the most effective and appropriate way to absorb the wailing, gravely twang of the Flats. Listen to mostly unrecorded songs, including one in all likelihood played for the first time live, thinking all the while that it's definitely time for a new album (right, gentlemen?).

Decide that a bright and beautiful Saturday in the mid-80s is perfect for sitting in the park, celebrating a used book store that's not only survived for 30 years, but grown and grown and grown and inevitably become an integral part of your own life. Settle in with a chicken quesadilla on a blanket front and center while a bunch of old blues session players crank out pitch-perfect, passionate tunes.

Then let Tucson's favorite sons and their best mariachi friends let loose with what must be about the best of the dozen or so shows of theirs you've taken in. Remember how you first saw Calexico with maybe a couple hundred people stuffed into an art gallery by the railroad tracks, must've been 1999 or 2000. Remember how they seemed to have a pedal for the passing train, and how they set the room on fire. Remember how on three or four albums since those same musicians captured a hell of a lot more attention and without a doubt became one of the world's greatest bands. Sit in anticipation for a particular song, a Bob Dylan cover you'd been soaking in for months, with several different bootleg recordings, before finally hearing them back Willie Nelson on "Senor." Celebrate as the trumpets bellow loud and mysterious. Shimmy and sway as the show stretches many songs and songs and songs afterwards. Depart with a poster and autographs, and the knowledge that such musical moments are priceless.

Let Sunday evolve slowly, but make sure to head downtown in time to catch the Skeletor parade. Mosey from there on over to the Ween show. Marvel at how packed the Rialto Theatre is, betting that none of the dozens of shoes you've seen there in the past several years had more people. Rock out with one of the strangest bands around. Ponder how despite never being fully joking or fully serious they've developed such a passionate following. Wish you knew a few more of their songs other than the Mollusk album.

Practically stagger out of the show, pausing to take in the painted masses and assorted weirdos passing by, hell-bent on some damn mischief or another. Let the fading crowd take over your thoughts, and provide the cinematic background for reflection on a weekend full of energy and curveball vitality and stupifying humanity, and sounds, wonderfully delivered sounds, that lodge themselves deep, as they should, offering continual refuge in the coming days and weeks from the numbing work and tasks that exist apart from the nights and the bands and the revelry and the nirvana of a well-orchestrated weekend.

Celebrate it all, and wait for the next round...

Upon Return...

A deep and overriding exhaustion, more mind-altering than the beer that took control of my last night in Brooklyn.

Manhattan skyline

Here's the view from my cousin's apartment in Queens. That's the Empire State Building prominent on the left, with the UN obscuring all but the tippy top of the Chrysler Building. Foreground to the right is the back of the Pepsi Cola sign on this side of the East River. Nice digs.

Dispatches from the East

Currently sitting on banks of East River staring at Manhattan skyline Stop Bars and comedy show last night in Queens and Art Brut and The Hold Steady in Philly Stop Ansel Adams and Annie Leibowitz exhibits at the Corcoran and boating on the Potomac and a rooftop party in view of the Capitol Stop Air & Space Museum World War II memorial and the Mall Stop Friends got married on lunch hour Stop Many great friends and laughter and incredible sights and sounds and steady consumption of Yuengling Stop Returning Sunday Stop

Catfish off to the East Coast

Well, I'm leaving in the morning as soon as the dark clouds lift...
Not actually, but there's nothing better to announce the night before you take off for someplace else. I'm thrilled to be headed to D.C., Philly and NYC. And the news from Felix Hurn tonight makes the whole trip even better: Next Tuesday we'll rock out at the Hold Steady show. Boo-ya!
Untold hours of fun and adventure await. It's time for another 'Ninjas of Fun' stealth attack -- East Coast style.

Catfish at the bluegrass festival with a half million other people, part two

After loading up with beers, Freaktown and I got into the park Saturday just in time to hear Guy Clark singing out LA Freeway on our way to catch James McMurtry on the way to John Prine. And in the only really large music festival I’ve attended, I immediately came to grips with all the concessions you have to make to time and space and crowds and hunger and restroom breaks and moods and everything. But I settled easily into the see-who-I-can-see-but-make-sure-the-festival-is-about-fun-and-friends mentality and let that drive everything. We met up with S and D and C and family and after the Flatlanders settled in on a few blankets in front of the main stage. (Thanks to those who staked out the place.) From there it was Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby, Gillian Welch and Steve Earle. If my favorite song day one was Remember the Mountain Bed, day two’s was Gillian and David doing Queen Jane Approximately.

Many of the songs I enjoyed most during the festival were covers and I think that make perfect sense in the realm of bluegrass (and hardly strictly bluegrass) music. Country and folk have always been about the standards, with everyone of note giving his or her or their own interpretation of the great songs. While the songwriter may seem king in this arrangement, it’s really more about the performance. If everyone’s playing the same songs, that sets a level playing field and the better rendition comes out on top. And some songs are just perfect in a bluegrass festival setting. Walking back toward the main stage later Sunday, with a good bit of the festival under my belt, I just felt like Dylan’s You Ain’t Going Nowhere would be just perfect. And, no shit, within a half hour, Earl Scruggs and his boys were belting it out: “Ooh whee, ride me high, tomorrow’s the day my bride’s a-gonna come / Oh oh, are we gonna fly, down in the easy chair.”

And then there’s the universal truths offered by a lot of the best country and folk music. Steve Earle said it best as he was tuning between songs: “Same girl, different harmonica.”

We were down at the park Sunday in time to catch the Sadies, and just as I was sure she would, Neko joined in, singing Evangeline, with her in Emmylou’s role just forming a great bookend on that day. We were all looser with Sunday’s schedule, settling in a ways back from our main-stage camp of a day earlier. I ate the best corndog ever. A couple of us made a beer run after realizing that the day’s supply was woefully insufficient – and in doing so made a few bucks selling later on to fellow festival-goers as their own supplies dwindled. I ran over to see Dave Alvin on a smaller stage that seemed even more crowded. The boom operator there had a much easier time passing the camera right over the crowd, and I tried giving a different look or gesture each time it caught me. Maybe there’ll be a DVD of the festival, and thousands of people across the world will have documented proof of my existence…

Sunday was the heaviest bluegrass day, with David Grisman, Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson leading up to Emmylou. It was the first time I’d seen the legendary Queen of country-folk and her set was incredible (as I can prove to anyone with the bootleg I’ve snagged). Highlights were Pancho and Lefty, Red Dirt Girls and Sin City, but really the whole thing kept me moving in that half-dance thing I described earlier, a swaying, twisting, head-bobbing casual sort of shimmy thing.

I couldn’t have asked for better companions throughout, reconnecting with several people I’d hardly gotten to see in years and realizing why the hell I’m friends with all these awesome people to being with. Overall I feel as though I pulled some minor logistical miracles getting together so many people who I knew but didn’t or barely knew each other.

At the close of the festival we all assembled, stuffed too many people into a two-door Honda and then a studio apartment, ordered Burmese food and re-upped on some beer and Fernet. We listened to a Wilco bootleg I’d brought as a gift for my hosts, watched a bit of the Wilco documentary to zero in on that Santa Cruz record store owner, and talked about the city and life and Arizona and how so many people managed to start in Tucson and end up in San Francisco. I was invited a few times to move there, encouraged to make Bay City my home too, to take part in such notable occasions on a regular basis. What could be more convincing? What could make a better argument than those friends and that weekend? It’s hands-down the highlight of the year.

Catfish at the bluegrass festival with a half million other people, part one

Blogging things a week late is never good form, but the price extracted for my tremendous San Francisco vacation was way too much work and stress immediately upon return. Plus, most of my computer time since has been devoted to tracking down bootlegs of the performances I saw, with surprisingly good luck.

It was a relatively unplanned vacation, all starting with an email from Freaktown saying that I should do everything in my power to make it to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. Yeah right, thought I, noting that it’s barely a week before my long-planned swing to the East Coast and short-notice airfare is as big a discourager as anything. But I kept looking over the list of artists: Jeff Tweedy, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Dave Alvin, John Prine, Gillian Welch, plus a whole host of actual bluegrass legends. Had I never known it was coming I couldn’t possibly hate myself for missing it, but now that it was presented as an actual option, how could I not? So I searched out a decently priced flight, scammed an extra day off work and ultimately spent the whole weekend feeling like I’d won some damned contest.

I stopped and started writing this a few times, and at each step the words fell far short of the magic that I felt while listening to the music. But live music is like that – fleeting and powerful, at times transcendent and at times a buoyant current you ride for a while, and try to hang onto as it flows through you. At times during the performances I tried to see the music, to let my eyes fall somewhere, a tree or a bird or a section of the massive crowd, and watch it move, watch for moments it matched the music, as if the sound was a wind. Other times my own body was what got caught up in the tunes, more of a set of loose sways and twists than anything resembling an actual dance, but it was mostly bluegrass and that’s pretty much how I roll anyway.

Tweedy in particular was mesmerizing. One man, one guitar, one voice, an occasional harmonica, and a set of songs that stack up very favorably with anything every written or performed. I don’t say that lightly, or with hyperbole. It’s a very measured and purposeful statement, but everyone who stood near me as those songs washed over us in the dying afternoon, sunset and early dusk of a perfect San Francisco day in the park would agree.

I’ve long said that Remember The Mountain Bed – a collaboration across time and space between Tweedy and the legendary Woody Guthrie – is probably the best song ever written. I’ll just include one favorite verse, but measure the rest of the lyrics yourself here:

I learned the reason why man must work and how to dream big dreams
To conquer time and space and fight the rivers and the seas
I stand here filled with my emptiness now and look at city and land
And I know why farms and cities are built by hot, warm, nervous hands.

And in just the second song of Tweedy’s set I was absolutely thrilled, hanging on the transformative wisdom of the words and the intricate, hauntingly beautiful guitar work, all the while aware that I was in the midst of one of the greatest musical moments I’ve ever experienced.

Just as Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks is an album that comes stunningly close to offering a definition of life, “Remember The Mountain Bed” is a song that nearly circles the total of humanity. (And if you think Blood On The Tracks is a nothing but a brilliant break-up or divorce album, with songs of pain and sorrow, you’re sadly missing out on a great deal.)

Tweedy was in a great mood, joking throughout, with his kids sitting on the side of the stage and at one point he dedicated a song to his wife.

The set list was great, opening with Sunken Treasure. I loved the mix of stuff from throughout his career, from old Uncle Tupelo stuff to an almost forgotten Golden Smog song to the title track from the latest album.

In the crowd during the Tweedy performance, Freaktown and I recognized a guy who was in the I Am Trying To Break Your Heart documentary during one part. It was unmistakable – he’s a record store owner in Santa Cruz who was backstage when Tweedy performed a show in San Francisco. He’s unmistakable, with a pretty thick beard that goes a bit further down the neck than most, and thick, straight, somewhat longish hair underneath a ball cap. It was so weird to actually see somebody from that movie in the crowd (having apparently many more viewings of the film under his belt, Freaktown also recognized somebody else, but I couldn’t place her), but then at one point this guy turned around and held his camera aloft to get a crowd shot. Holy shit, I thought, that guy from the movie now has a picture of us! For a while after that I let myself get lost in the trippy, circular ruminations around the fact that a perfect stranger and I both have documented proof of the other’s existence.

Taking the train over to the park Friday, Freaktown and I ran into SW practically the moment we boarded. Now there’s a little synchronicity to kick off the weekend, I thought. Then we met up with Tony and found our way in just before T-Bone Burnett started. We knew his special guests were Neko Case and John “Cougar” Mellencamp (never forget the “Cougar” part), but how that was going to all tie together was beyond any of us. Neko played Hank's Alone and Forsaken and another one I didn’t recognize. After a few more, out came the Coug (“The COUG!" we shouted). There was some song about Jena, then the real highlight, “Pink Houses,” with what I can only guess is the first and last time Neko sings “Ain’t that America” to back the Coug. Nice.

Then after Tweedy we all headed down to the Haight for sausages and beers, taking it easy with the knowledge of two more tremendous, long days of music ahead of us.

Holographic Gore...

... was the runner-up name for the latest mix, which ultimately became:

The Strangest Oscillations

Mose Allison - Young Man's Blues
M. Ward - Chinese Translation
Tom Waits - Bottom Of The World
Dean & Britta - Moonshot
Son Volt - Atmosphere
Pavement - Gold Soundz
Rainer Maria - Catastrophe
Calexico - Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)*
Gob Iron - Hills Of Mexico
James McMurtry - We Can't Make It Here
Arlo Guthrie - St. James Infirmary*
Steve Earle - Copperhead Road*
Townes Van Zandt - Rex's Blues*
Neil Young - After The Gold Rush
Dave Alvin - You're a Big Girl Now*
Okkervil River - Love to a Monster
Mazzy Star - Flowers in December*
Feist - One Evening
The Zombies - She's Not There*

(* Live)

and here's the one before that:

The July Plan

Okkervil River - The President's Dead
The Mountain Goats - Going To Georgia
The New Drakes - The Impossible You
Flogging Molly - If I Ever Leave This World Alive
Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon - Love Me, I'm A Liberal
The Hold Steady - Southtown Girls
Tom Petty - Ankle Deep
Billy Bragg - Saturday Boy*
Damien Rice - The Blower’s Daughter*
Tom Waits - San Diego Serenade*
The Band of Blacky Ranchette - Getting It Made
Lonna Kelly and the Broken-Hearted Lovers - I Should Have Known
Nico - I'll Keep It With Mine
The Sadies - Evangeline*
The Walkmen - Many Rivers To Cross
Ryan Adams - Dear Chicago
Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus Three - (A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations) Briggs
Bruce Springsteen - Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?*
Bob Dylan - In The Summertime
Arlo Guthrie & Peter Seeger - Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos)*

(* Live)


Others Previously:
Distant Gold
Anchors
Whirlwind & Refuge
Talkin' Ponderosa Highway Blues
Momentary Fires