THE GREAT GADFLY:

TOO MUCH NOISE...yet never enough.

Nick Cave - Nocturama: I love Nick Cave, and this album feels like it was made strictly for folks who love Nick Cave. I love it. You might not. There's one really tremendous, 15-minute song at the end of the album (with an accompanying 15-minute video that comes with the CD) which is either epic or over-indulgent, depending on your POV...the rest of the album seems slapped together to justify the release of this song, and while nothing really slaps me upside the head, it's freakin' inspiration incarnate compared to most of the crap out there. Good reading music. Good cleaning music. Good music to lounge around to on a lazy sunny Saturday afternoon.

New York Dolls - 7 Day Weekend (w/ live disc) - I forget the exact name of this re-issue....something like "Two Big Kisses" or something. Kind of a hack-job cash-in re-release job, but with amusing enough packaging and liner notes, and good sound. This is the first NY Dolls stuff I've heard all the way through, and I was thoroughly charmed.

The Flaming Lips - That Yoshimi Monster Album - I bought "The Soft Bulletin" after everyone and their cho-cha raved about how brilliant it was, and when I finally listened to it, I hated it. The album sounded to me like it didn't know whether to be smirky-jokey or profound-insane-genius. It was like listening to OK Computer as recorded by the Dead Milkmen. So you'll understand my hesitence when the same hooting enthusiasts recommended the latest album, over and over and over. It didn't help that the album seemed to be about Japanese monster movies. But what the hey, I wanted to hear something new, I found the CD for cheep, so I gave it a spin. Freakin' BRILLIANT. The vocals are infinitely stronger than anything I've heard from the Lips, the music is never-a-dull-moment engaging, and it's imagination on adrenalin from beginning to end. Yummy.

The Pixies - Surfer Rosa w/ Come On, Pilgrim - What can I say about The Pixies? "Gigantic" is currently playing a loop in my head. The "Pilgrim" e.p. makes me love Kim Deal to pieces.

Wire - The A List - Never really got into this band, other than a brief dalliance in college with "A Bell Is A Cup...Until It Is Struck". Listening to Wire is a bit like drinking coffee. You're probably not going to like it the first time, but eventually you'll find that you have a craving for it. This is a nice collection of their stuff, compiled from a ballot sent to a buncha music snobs and put together from the most popular choices. One of the tunes wound up on an Elastica album. "Eardrum Buzz" is still a fantastic song. Hell, they're all good.

Gary Numan - Hybrid - Yup. Uncle Gary has re-re-re-purposed the same seven or eight songs that he's been recycling for the past quarter of a century, he's brought in a litany of quasi-dude!-alternametal/DJ types to remix the bejeezus outta the poor threadbare darlings, and he's replaced his original deadpan monotone vocals with all-new, updated deadpan monotone vocals. Oh, and he managed to stretch it out over the space of two discs, so as to jack up the price that much more. Oh - and it's an import, to boot. But here's the crazy thing: it's really, really good. If you have sufficient love in your heart for "Cars", "Down In The Park", "Are Friends Electric?" and the rest of the Numan Hit Parade, you'll do yourself a service to give this a listen. It has all the earmarks of a moneymaking cheepie project, but honest - the end results squash the shady particulars.

New Music Given To Me By This One Over Weekend

Too damn many to count, but let's just say I'll be able to listen to a new hard-to-find slice of purple paisley lovin' every day for the next, oh, four months. Not that this was one of the most profoundly amazing surprises I've ever gotten, but my eyes are still aching from when they fell out of my head, rolled across the floor and got stuck in the radiator.

New Music Downloaded On New PC

David Bowie - "I Got You, Babe" (w/ Marianne Faithfull), "Under Pressure" (live w/ Annie Lennox), "Nature Boy" (w/ Massive Attack). I had a Ziggasm.

Prince - Some Crazy-Ass Mix of "When Doves Cry" (no, not the shitty Acid Factor version from the early '90s)

ELO - Ten Minute Megamix. Awww yeah.