Happy Birthday Lou Reed "Her Life Was Saved by Rock 'n' Roll" is the first line coming to my mind when I think of you. Rock music as a saviour. Rockn' roll as a modern Jesus. That is brilliant and life-affirming. When I listen to the song I know it is true. There would probably never have been punk without you and indie music neither. Thank you and keep on rockin' and rescuing Lou. 60, "it's the beginning of a new age."

Music

• Some people are getting very excited about And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead (they at least succeeded in overtaking GYBE! in terms of length of the band name). Matt LeMay from Pitchfork gives their album Source Tags and Codes a smashing rating of 10.0/10. Andrew Womack at neumu gives the top rating as well and they are on the latest SPEX cover. Never heard of them myself. "Mistakes and Regrets" from the older album Madonna at epitonic does not sound revolutionary but it is solid indie rock with a good noise factor. Discussion on them at ILM here.
• Soft music for stupid people on the Mountain Goats: "The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton"
• BeatBlogging: not so sure what this is about. Clips of electronic music can be downloaded as mp3s. Phil writes: "But what would happen if a culture did try to blog music, to create little fragments of rhythm and melody, to hyperlink through them?"
• Musicrag: good alternative music blog with many concert reviews
• Popshot Magazine says Punk Rock = Capitalism. I have only glanced over the article. It sounds interesting. The subtitle is: "the 'Anti-Capitalists' Have It All Wrong".

Non-music

• Google loves blogs and here is why.
• I try to read as many weblogs as possible. The problem is that I usually do not know if a weblog has been updated or not. A good way to make sure to read only updated weblogs is a site like blo.gs. It lets you define a list of your favourite weblogs. Weblogs must have been pinged to for example weblogs.com to appear with a correct timestamp in the list. The weblogs which have been pinged (updated) the last appear as the first in the list. In this way I know which weblogs have been updated recently. I use the Weblogs ping bookmarklet constructor. You just have to give it the URL of your site and then you can put the bookmarklet into your "Links" bar (IE). After publishing a new post you just click on the bookmarklet to ping to weblogs.com. Right now only 20-25% of the weblogs I read ping. It would be nice if more weblogs would use the pinging procedure. More infos either on blo.gs or weblogs.com.
• Budget traveller's guide to sleeping in airports (via DIE ZEIT Weblog): "For travellers who are REALLY on a budget and are looking for a way to skim a few bucks off their travel expenses, why not consider sleeping in an airport? " 1,388 personal accounts of people who have enjoyed one night in an airport.

Kings of Convenience: "Quiet Is the New Loud" in 102 beats When I‘m down and I put on this record, the dark clouds obscuring my mind are immediately blown away. I see the clear blue sky. A tender voice whispers lyrics of unrequited love and is accompanied by two acoustic guitars: „Every night she kisses someone new – never you.“ Kings of Convenience are two Norwegians looking like teenagers who made an album in the spirit of Nick Drake. The beautiful tunes are wistful and light at the same time. This is perfect music to fall asleep to or to wake up to. Equally soothing and refreshing. On the border of dream and reality.

Surfing for music news

• The Weezer blog on all things Weezer, you know this small neglected power pop band.
• Johnny Cash's new record announced. In American IV he will cover John Lennon and Trent Reznor (scroll a little down on the page).
• Article on Keith Jarrett who is on tour in the US.
• Winter in England - 20 albums for the coldest season: my personal favourites in Wisdom Goof's well commented list are the first Tindersticks album, Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque, Felt's Absolute Classic Masterpieces and Joy Division's Closer. Though I only know half of the albums by name.
• Pere Ubu release new album St. Arkansas May 8th (I really liked David Thomas last album Surf's Up with the Two Pale Boys).
• Neumu's Michael Goldberg on All Hail West Texas the latest album by John Darnielle's Mountain Goats: "Lo-fi. Unique voice that is about as far from slick as you can get. Rough guitar playing. Amazing lyrics. Amazing melodies. And so intense."
• Brian Jonestown Massacre live in Chicago (by Phil from Glorious Noise): "In a world where digital manipulation of tones and click track drums can suck the soul out of any song, the Brian Jonestown Massacre slugged its way through perfectly crafted pop tunes and space jams and for two hours last night saved rock and roll."

The weaker sex I love female voices and I'd like to write something on my favourite ones. For a start just an alphabetic list of those which left a lasting impression on me. I hope I will be going to write something on some of them soon.

The voices which left a mark:

• Laurie Anderson
• Sally Barker
• Jennifer Charles (Elysium Fields)
• Anne Clark
• Caroline Crawley (Shelleyan Orphan)
• Julee Cruise
• Kim Deal (Pixies)
• Liz Fraser (Cocteau Twins)
• Lisa Germano
• Beth Gibbons (Portishead)
• Allison Goldfrapp (Goldfrapp)
• Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth)
• Francoise Hardy
• Angie Hart (Frente!)
• PJ Harvey
• Billie Holiday
• Chrissie Hynde (Pretenders)
• Rickie Lee Jones
• Valérie Leulliot (Autour de Lucie)
• Joanne Loughman (Glee Club)
• Aimee Mann
• Shirley Manson (Garbage)
• Chan Marshall (Cat Power)
• Joni Mitchell
• Stina Nordenstam
• Sinead O'Connor
• Mary Margaret O'Hara
• Dolores O'Riordan (Cranberries)
• Poe
• Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star)
• Michelle Shocked
• Nina Simone
• Patti Smith
• Margo Timmins (Cowboy Junkies)
• Suzanne Vega

Slightly so:

• Emma Anderson (Lush)
• Fiona Apple
• Joan Baez
• Jane Birkin
• Björk
• Kate Bush
• Sandy Denny
• Ani DiFranco
• Tanja Donelly (Throwing Muses)
• Juliana Hatfield
• Janis Joplin
• Brenda Kahn
• Courtney Love
• Natalie Merchant (10,000 Maniacs)
• Meredith Monk
• Nico
• Sade
• Nancy Sinatra
• Tanita Tikaram
• Tori Amos
• Harriet Wheeler (Sundays)
• Kathryn Williams
• Lucinda Williams

To check out:

• KD Lang
• McGarrigle sisters
• Sarah McLachlan
• Buffy Sainte Marie
• Laura Nyro
• Jane Siberry

Why is rock so shite today? No answer here, this is a question for all of you. Today's rock music seems to me so uninspired and dull. No innovation at all, just stealing from the history of rock music. Or is it just me who is getting too old for rock music? Who has already heard so much of it that he now always hears the influences first and finds that the originals have been so much better. Is rock music at a dead-end or is it my relation to it? I am 100% sure that I will always find an unreleased bootleg version of Velvet Underground's Femme Fatale much more exciting than anything of the three bands I mention below. Today I listened to a live mp3 of The Strokes When It Started in my car hifi. And I must admit that I have listened to a lot of bad music in the 38 years I have been going but this is my personal candidate for the worst song ever. The garage guitar sound and the raucuous voice of the singer do not help. The repeated guitar line is the most annoying I have ever heard. Só mediocre that it is almost original. The song goes nowhere as none of the Strokes songs. How could this band ever be signed by any label? And how could anyone buy their records? It will always be a mystery to me. They are even worse than Oasis. And Oasis have been the spearhead of bad ripped-off rock music for quite some years. Slightly less hyped are The White Stripes. They are only two, a man playing the guitar and singing and his (ex-?)wife playing the drums. Their good tracks sound like hard psychedelic blues rock a little like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Very energetic and played and sung with a devil's soul. Unfortunately many of their songs are softer and more conventional. And the speed blues ones sound all the same so that one song of theirs is actually enough. The great Fell in Love with a Girl for example. There they had their 109 seconds of fame. Last band to mention here in today's triumvirate of rock newcomers are B.R.M.C. Their record is called Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. I am curious if they will reveal another meaning of the band name's abbreviation for their next album. They are obviously copying The Jesus & Mary Chain who in the beginning have been copying The Velvet Underground period second album. But where J&MC had their own distorted guitar sound and restrained vocal delivery BRMC just sound like very good copycats. Apparently they also steal from other bands. Check the 30 second windows media snippet of Rifle from this page. First I thougt, hey this is great. Ride are back. The slower songs of BRMC are nevertheless uninteresting to say the least. So in the end the only one of today's rock scene who is worth it is Ryan Adams as I have said before. He has digested so much different music from the 60s-80s that he could create something refreshingly new out of it. And he is a beast on stage.

Last question round with John Thanks for your good questions and your honest answers John. 10. It sounds like the Ryan Adams concert was excellent. What is the best live music experience you've had and why? My favourite concert was Yo La Tengo in Berlin in 1997. It was a small club in East Berlin. It was very crowded and hot. Ira Kaplan, Yo La Tengo's guitarist played himself into ecstasy. It was absolutely mesmerising. I came out of the concert as out of a purgatory. 11. What do you think would have become of the career of Nick Drake had he lived? He would have become popular one day. And probably would have become even sadder as he would have realised that success is not the only thing in life. And he would have written even more melancholic songs. 12. Have you traveled to America? If so, where did you visit and what were your impressions? If not, do you plan to do so? Yes. I've been to the East coast and the West coast. I loved San Francisco for the atmosphere and Cape Cod for the landscape. Another great place was Sonoma County for the wine, especially the red Zinfandel. I like America as a country a lot (or is it just a myth?). though I am not sure if I like Americans as people (I mean in general). Many Germans have the prejudice that most Americans are quite superficial people. Open and nice in the beginning but without much depth behind. Ignorant of almost everything outside of the US. I guess there is some truth hidden in this prejudice. 13. What words would you choose as your epitaph? There is life before death.

• I started a thread on Ryan Adams. Uninspired copycat or the Future of rockn'roll? at I Love Music. The answers were quite disappointing as most of them were off-topic and/or cynical.
• I will participate in the third anniversary special of Freaky Trigger, the pop music fanzine of Tom Ewing and friends in March. The task is to write 100 words on an album I'd like others to know more about and another 100 words on an album another participant has chosen which will be selected randomly. Up to now there are already about 50 potential contributors. Everyone interested can take part in this. So come on join us.

Ryan Adams in concert We were lucky on Thursday and got tickets at the box office. The Batschkapp was extremely crowded. If there had been a fire or any other emergency it would have been almost impossible to escape. We arrived just before eight when the concert was supposed to start but the poor support band only started around nine and was saluted with many catcalls. It was a Swedish duo comprising a pianist and a singer. They did some romantic low-fi numbers. I liked the piano player but the singer was quite annoying as he sounded very affected. The public got more and more impatient after they had left the stage as there was no sign of the headliner. A guy next to us was quite pissed off of the delay and left around half past ten. Shortly afterwards Ryan Adams and the Sweetheart Revolution arrived on stage and started with a rocker. Ryan and his band were on top form. They were amazing as they switched from country ballads to punk songs. I really liked the hard rock guitar sound when there were three guitarists playing. Ryan has a very strong stage presence and talked a lot to the audience which did not understand most of what he was saying. He even got away with saying "I am sorry that your girl-friend has a crush on me" to a guy in the public. He behaved as a rock star but it was perfectly natural. Unfortunately the concert finished after only two hours as people did not insist enough on another encore. Ryan Adams was absolutely stunning. His music is pure power and emotion. I could hear many influences like Springsteen, Dylan, Presley, Neil Young, Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead etc. But he has his own sound and I loved it. I'd say he is not the future of rockn'roll, he IS rockn'roll. Unfortunately next time he won't play in such a small place again.

Blogger Insider, John's 2nd set of questions 5) I am very envious of your planned trip to hear Ryan Adams in concert. I really like his music. How long have you been following his career? Do you listen to much of his pre-going solo work? Damned. Today I found out that his concert is sold out. But my girl-friend and me will go there anyway. Maybe we are lucky that there are tickets on the spot. I do not know any of the Whiskeytown records. But I'll guess I wouldn't like them too much as they are quite country as far as I have heard. I got Heartbreaker last year and I loved it. He has everything it needs. A good expressive varied voice, touching lyrics and great melodies. He could well become today's Bob Dylan. 6) Yesterday was a rainy day for you. Do you like rainy days? If so, why? If not, why not? Depends on the circumstances and the place. In Germany I usually hate rain. As there is so much here. It rains almost every second day. In Mediterranean countries I love the summer rain as it clears the hot earth and is rare and precious. 7) Do you have siblings? If so, describe them, please. Yes I have got a younger sister. She is very different from me. Less of a thinker. More of an expert in the art of living. 8) Name a song that describes well your current state of mind. A Thousand Kisses Deep by Leonard Cohen. Especially the beginning: "The ponies run, the girls are young, The odds are there to beat. You win a while, and then it's done - Your little winning streak." 9) Name a song that makes you immediately happy any time you hear it. That is very difficult. I'd say the Sugarglider's Will We Ever Learn. Not really happy but very light and tuneful as only bands from the fifth continent can be.