I totally agree. I've really enjoyed all the books I've yet read for WUiB, even though I missed a couple of months there this summer. "To the White Sea" is great fodder for discussion and I've found the discussions with the fellow AVC commenters really enlightening. I was just glad to find out I hadn't missed…

Better question: Where to start in Bell's increasingly large oeuvre, anyway?

Definitely adding this one to my list of books to check out. Thanks, anonymous internet guy.

Pot, pot, gimme some pot! Forget what you are, be what you're not!

The AV Club posted something from his show a few months back: The Roots with Christopher Cross and Michael McDonald playing "Run Like the Wind". That was entertaining. And I'd belt Jimmy Fallon across the face for his mugging schtick if I met him.

Neil built up all that critical good will with his last two solo albums ("12 Songs" being completely brilliant, by the way, because it showed he's an honest to god cheeseball and he's Neil fucking Diamond and doesn't care what you think thank you very much) and then he has to go and piss it all away with jokes like…

He's put out this album at least twice.

I heartily endorse the following previously made choices: "Stuck Between Stations", "Star Witness", "B.O.B.", "The Bleeding Heart Show".

To me it sounded like "Boys and Girls in America" was the least messy, most charming Hold Steady album I'd heard. (Possible caveat: it was also the first.) I get people who don't buy the Hold Steady's schtick (and really, that's what it is, I just happen to buy into it) but to buy it and not be at least a little…

I'd rather talk about Coolio's new cookbook.

Likely Super Bowl set list:
1. Cobwebs and Strange
2. Why Did I Fall for That?
3. In the Ether
4. Blue Red and Grey

"Before the Flood" would be awesome if it were just Bob zealously disrespecting his catalog and his audience. But The Band songs on there are truly shit…Manuel and Danko are so far past gone, and that prehistoric synthesizer on everything…yeesh. But, there's that unhinged jaunt through "All Along the Watchtower" and…

I never understood why "Stranger" is held up as a classic of the genre. What a terrible, terrible book. Some interesting ideas but overlong by at least 200 pages, and almost all of that was Jubal Harshaw who is obviously standing in for Heinlein.

@Phipps: That DIY collection was a cut-out bin staple for a few years, and I bought the lot of them for a mere pittance. Some of the best money I ever spent. There are volumes of that where I now have full albums by EVERY SINGLE ACT on there. If people can find those, they should snap them up like now.

Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
I always thought the lyrics regarded having been screwed over by the record industry. "The percent that you're paying is too high a price while you're living beyond all your means, and the man in the suit has just bought a new suit from the profit he's made on your dreams." But I suppose…

"Spiders" is great, possibly the best Wilco song I've yet heard. "Less Than You Think" is the real bummer. That shit you can edit right out.

@Riff Raff: from Massachusetts, are ye? I can't imagine "Alice's Restaurant" being anywhere else's Thanksgiving tradition. It's the one time when all Boston radio stations converge into one in celebration of…something.

A few points:

It's because he gets results, you stupid chef!

"Every Grain of Sand" and "When He Returns" are the best of the explicitly Jesus-loving dross he spewed forth on those albums. "Slow Train Coming" is absolutely bleeding awful. Bob must've been messed up on cough syrup or something.