Leo Kottke brought his one-man encyclopedia of acoustic guitar to Manchester's Palace Theatre last night.

With all of the depressing war-related news, rumors, etc., it was nice to sit down and hear some music in one of its purer forms: just a guy and his guitar.

And what a guitar it is. Leo Kottke's playing is unique in the acoustic guitar world. Sure, there are other fingerstyle players, aficionados of alternate tunings, slide players. You name it. None of them sound like Leo (ok, maybe you can count John Fahey in there...and while I love his playing too, it's just not the same).

Walking basslines below chiming artificial harmonics, aggressive 'circular' rhythms, atonal 'bent' chords...all with beautiful melodies somehow woven in.

I don't know how he does it.

And then I got home from the show and glanced over at my guitar. I could just swear that it shot back with a "who the hell are you lookin' at?!"

I looked away and skulked off to bed.

Paranoid - Black Sabbath

Just gloomy enough.

From an editorial written (during the last year of World War I) by Theodore Roosevelt:

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

After all of the war updates: newspaper, radio, web, television...I'm just plain burned out. Depressed. Tired. Angry. Not exactly in that order.

And maybe all at the same time.

So it's time for a little aural therapy. Some guilty pleasure. Musical comfort food.

No, it's not something sweet ( Alison Krauss - New Favorite). Something skronky ( Anthony Braxton - For Alto Saxophone). Something guilty ( that damnedsoundtrackthateverybodylovedbackintheearly80sthatIalwaysprofessedtohatebutsecretlyloved).

No, it's the "F-word". Fusion. And the recording is Billy Cobham's Spectrum.

I know why people hated fusion: the excessive musicianship, the flashy (and often endless) solos, the self-indulgence.

And of course this record has all of that. But it's also got the sick guitar and keyboard interplay of Tommy Bolin and Jan Hammer (long before Miami Vice), some tasty funk guitar (pretty much foreign to this genre) and the how-the-hell-did-he-do-that drumming of Billy Cobham.

Check it out.

You'll find yourself turning it up. Maybe more than once.

It may not drown out the war...but it might help.

For some time now, I've had this little ritual. On Friday mornings I attach special significance to the first cd that I play. Don't know why. It seems like a mini-commentary (in my head) on how things are going for me. Maybe it's that I'm psyched to be at the end of a good week..the end of a bad one...or the start of a (hopefully) good weekend. This has never been completely clear to me. So a while back I started posting these selections on my website as "The Friday Morning Listen".

Maybe at some point in the future I can make sense of it...

So this week's Friday Morning Listen:

Evolve - Ani Difranco

Probably her "jazziest" recording yet. I don't think her band can get any tighter.

Warning: after giving Volume 4 a listen you may feel a strong urge to dig out your skinny tie (c'mon, you know you wore one!) from the back of the closet. You may find yourself heading to the hair salon for no apparent reason. You will of course realize that you've developed sentimental feelings for that "sideways" haircut you used to have. Resist: you're just under the spell of Joe Jackson's wayback machine set to "New Wave".

I've been a fan of JJ from the very beginning. Much like Elvis Costello, he has the ability to continuously reinvent himself. While this quality is more often associated with David Bowie, I've always thought that both Joe and Elvis have come up with more consistently interesting music as they've matured.

It wouldn't be fair to say that this collection of songs contains only Look Sharp,I'm The Man and Beat Crazy-era music. While the original band lineup serves up a big heap 'o power pop (I really had forgotten how tight that rhythm section was!), Joe blend's in touches from some of my favorite (and, for the most part, forgotten) recordings: 1989's Blaze Of Glory and 1991's Laughter and Lust (both sadly out of print). In fact, when I first heard Volume 4's first track, "Take It Like A Man", I was instantly transported to a JJ show from the Laughter and Lust tour: at Boston's Orpheum Theatre...in the middle of a summer heatwave. Outside it was well over 100 degrees. Inside? Forget It. The show was so over the top that we all got over the lack of air conditioning. (Ok, maybe not completely. I mean, it was "sweatin' hot"!)

This really isn't a record for Joe Jackson fans only. With all of the heavy news we're dealing with at the moment, just about anybody can take something positive away from Volume 4.

...now where did I leave that skinny brown leather tie?...

"...followed by fair and balanced analysis with Bill O'Reilly."

good one!

The Power To Believe - King Crimson

giant chunks of skronk.

Can an introvert be a successful autograph seeker? Not in my case. It's never been my thing. I've got two whole 'celebrity' signatures. One is from the folk singer Greg Brown (and I wasn't even present at the time of the signing!) The other came into my posession just last week.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

This all started one evening last fall. I come home from work and the wife says that she's got an interesting story for me. Some guy called the house to say that he accidentally received my copy of Stereophile in the mail...and would I like to pick it up or just have it sent back in the mail? She had his phone number.

Hmmmm....

Being a true-blue New Englander, where a newly-encountered person is considered to be the enemy until they can prove otherwise, this left me in with quite a dilemma. Do I make the call? Just ignore him (he'll take the hint)? What if I do call and he's a loser? On the other hand, he's into audio and music ....and it would be fun to have another audio co-conspirator to hang around with. One thing that I'm pretty sure of is that he's not from around here....because looking up a person's number from waylaid mail and making that phone call...that just not very...ummm..."New England-like". (Surely, if it had been me, I would have stuffed that thing right back in the mailbox!)

So I make the phone call. And it turns out that he's not the enemy. Just a nice guy who's into music and sound. We joke that we're probably the only two subscribers to Stereophile in out town. We manage to get together several times over the next few months....great to hash out arcane music issues with a like-minded person.

Oh...meeting Tori Amos...right.

My new friend is lucky enough to win tickets and VIP passes to the show at the University of New Hampshire. He calls me to relate the story...and would I like to go? Actually, there's one more introversion twist to this story. He want to know if I want to go if his wife fails to find a baby sitter. Sure I do...but, pathetically, in the back of my mind...I'm hoping that I don't have to go. For an introvert, the only thing worse than meeting a new person is meeting a famous person.

Well, the baby sitter fell through and I got my chance to shake Tori's hand. Also had her sign the booklet from Little Earthquakes. Ah, and here's where my Stereophile subscription payed off again: Tori asks us how long we've been friends. "Only a few months" I say and then Eric quickly relates the story of the mis-delivered magazine. "Ahhhh...you're audiophiles!", says Tori. I didn't really want to admit to that but she interrupts with "That's OK, I'm married to one!"

So my booklet is signed "To Mark, the audiophile dude - Tori Amos".

I've gotta work on this introversion thing.

Who knows what'll happen.

Scarlet's Walk - Tori Amos

bad weather coming tomorrow. vacation after that.

oh ya, and a Tori show tonight over at UNH.

(how many days till spring?)

i'm not sure what's more bizarre. the fact that somebody's trying to make money off of that sad night club fire....or that the bidding is up to $71.

the weather has gone completely haywire here in the northeast. yesterday it was up near 40...with a nasty, cold rain.

this morning i walked into the kitchen to have a cuppa and breakfast...it was around 15. then the wind came up and the temperature dropped like a stone. there's nothing like eight degrees and a 30 mph wind to put a little "spring" in your step!

so upon arriving here at work it somehow seemed appropriate to put on some music with a similar slap-in-the-face: Cecil Taylor's Silent Tongues.