My wife has her iPod back today. Life has lost all meaning.

Oh, but I am listening to Gary Higgin's Red Hash, a recommendation from a friend in Alabama. It's exquisite folksy hippie stuff. And Six Organs of Admittance, the most Faheyish of bands, covered the first song on their last album.

Thanks for the background, erika.

The Plan was like what would happen if Prince and the random indie rock band of your choice had a baby and gave it free reign of their collected music library, or possibly like if Cake wrote much better lyrics and had a singer who, um, couldn't exactly sing but could sure groove. And they're my favorite live and favorite local band of all time. (I'm not sure I would like them as much as I do if I hadn't seen them perform approximately ten times -- aforesaid singer-who-can't-really-sing was pure sex onstage, in a nerdy-indie-boy-getting-all-sweaty way.) I can upload a couple tracks to Buffistarawk if you want.

And they just came up on my iPod again. The music gods are being good to me.

The woman being a fan suggests to me that she has interesting musical tastes and probably likes to dance. The coolness factor fades as you get closer to D.C. -- true D.C. punk music snobs thought they were too pop or something.

(What? I warned I was gonna get evangelical.)

Probably so. She probably was a bit of a party girl before she started rescuing teen hookers full time.

Corwood, get the nano! You know you want to.

We have Elliott Smith playing on the office stereo, and it's making me even sadder than the news does. I need to go for a walk in the sun.

Oh, and erinaceous, if you read this, this photo's for you: [link]

Is that as good as "Another Girl, Another Planet"?

Even better! Or, as Jim notes, as good but different. Sometimes it feels better. It rocks splendidly. I love their guitarist, John Perry, but that's partly because he's got so much Johnny Thunders in his style. That always wins me over. It is a great great song, though, and I don't tire of it. The Peel version is also very good, though I still prefer the original.

Peter Holsapple (dBs) is on the WWOZ list of found-not-drowned NOLA musicians.

Arrrgh. I am earwormed with "Meet De Boys On De Battlefront". Which is a great song, but...

Okay, so what's the second Dr. John album I buy after loving "Dr. John's Gumbo"?

Gris-Gris.

WFMU is raising money towards the rebuilding of WWOZ [link]

Arrrgh. I am earwormed with "Meet De Boys On De Battlefront". Which is a great song, but...

Which, geographically, would be the Riverbend section of New Orleans over by Tulane.

Okay, so what's the second Dr. John album I buy after loving "Dr. John's Gumbo"?

As Corwood notes, Gris Gris is one of the good doctor's best albums. I will note, however, that it is a big slab of dark voodoo funk, and not the New Orleans history lesson you get in Gumbo.

You might like All By Hisself: Live At the Lonestar. AMG says:

This is a stone-solo piano outing recorded over two nights in 1986 at New York's premier roots music nightspot. The sound is phenomenal, the material is stellar — "Stagger Lee," "Swanee River Boogie," "Such a Night," "Junco Partner," "Iko, Iko," "Right Place, Wrong Time," and many others — and the performance is off the hook. Easily one of the best Dr. John live recordings, it sets a standard for capturing solo performers live and in the raw. In addition to one hour-plus CD, there is a bonus DVD included in the package. It's an intimate video of Rebennack sitting and playing music, talking about music, New Orleans, and the lineage of the great piano players from the Crescent City by a man whose entire life has been informed by that tradition. It's a one-of-a-kind portrait that is worth the price all by itself. This is the Christmas present for roots music fans in 2003.

I don't own it, but I'm very tempted by his Duke Ellington tribute, Duke Elegant:

Duke Elegant certainly wasn't the only tribute to Duke Ellington put out in honor of the 100th anniversary of the legendary bandleader, nor was it even the first time Dr. John had tackled his material. But it would be hard to find a better homage than this one. Dr. John proves a surprisingly good match for Ellington's material, placing a tremendously funky foundation under the composer's tunes. The sound is dominated by the good doctor's incomparable New Orleans piano and organ, naturally, and the best tracks are those whose melodies are carried solely by his keyboard work, such as instrumentals "Caravan" and "Things Ain't What They Used to Be." The vocal cuts are fine — his takes on the Ellington ballad "Solitude" and especially the dreamy, elegant "Mood Indigo" show off Dr. John's uniquely expressive voice as well as any of his early-era recordings — though he occasionally tends to approach self-caricature, as on "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)." Any weakness, however, is more than made up for by the closing rearrangement of "Flaming Sword," one of three Ellington rarities here. Dr. John transforms the instrumental into a luminous, gorgeously melodic display of Professor Longhair-style piano over an astonishingly sexy New Orleans funk rhythm. Ultimately, Duke Elegant holds up both as an innovative twist on the Ellington songbook and as a solid Dr. John album in its own right.