When I was in high school here in Spokane, the radio station we all listened to was 105.7 the Peak. Ok, some of us may have switched over to ZZU on occasion if we needed a little Usher or Blackstreet in our lives. No diggity. No doubt.  But for the most part my alternative rock fix was met by The Peak.

Then- the dreaded format change. It became another cookie cutter classic rock station and I promptly switched all of my radio presets to NPR.  Other than The Peak- Spokane radio sucked.

BUT NOW THE PEAK IS BACK! And I couldn’t be happier. It’s only been back a week, but oh, what a week it’s been.  Here are some of the songs I’ve heard just today:  (yes, I wrote them down. I just couldn’t believe my lucky little ears!)

1. Pearl Jam – Crazy Mary
2. Better Than Ezra – Good
3. Harvey Danger – Flagpole Sitta
4. Frank Black – Los Angeles
5. Weezer – some new song- don’t know the name
6. Soul Coughing – Circles
7. Veruca Salt – Leave Me Laying Here
8. Seven Mary Three – Cumbersome
9. Sponge – Plowed
10. Silverchair!! – Tomorrow
11. Oasis – Live Forever
12. Screaming Trees – Nearly Lost You
13. Death Cab – I Will Possess Your Heart
14. Alice in Chains – Them Bones
15. Foo Fighters – Long Road to Ruin
16. Modest Mouse – Float On

I’m a big fan of the Raconteurs. Their 2006 release, Broken Boy Soldiers, might be one of my all-time ‘pick up a cd on a whim and have it blow my mind’ finds. So it was with a whole bunch of little boy excitement that I picked up “Consolers of the Lonely.” So far, not a disappointment to be found.

Sometimes ’supergroups’ are awesome (see Mad Season, The Bens), and sometimes they waste my time (see Audioslave. Yep, I said it). I’m not sure many would consider The Raconteurs as a supergroup- but anytime you put Jack White and Brendan Benson together- I call that super. If you aren’t familiar w/ Brendan- go educate yourself now. Add the ridiculous rhythm section of Little Jack and Keeler… and what you have are some incredibly talents musicians making catchy, complex and crushing rock & roll. Seriously- no one other than this group of guys can pull of songs like these- blues standards, time signature bending romps, and straight forward distortion come together to blow your miiiinddds. Am I gushing?

This is some of the dirtiest, prettiest, most inspired & inspiring rock music out there today. Buy it. Now.

First shot at a ‘Review You Probably Don’t Care About’ has been posted. Meet: Vampire Weekend. C’mon- all the cool kids are doing it!

Ok- I’m no blogging guru. Or code geek. Or anything really.

My goal was to have a ‘page tab’ up at the top called “Currently Consuming” where I can write/talk about recent stuff I’ve been reading/watching/listening to.  It looks like that page basically functions as a place to house a single post. Am I understanding that correctly? I suppose I could just continue updating the post w/ new stuff- but that isn’t going to look great nor will it be very user-friendly.  Also, I don’t want to pepper my main page w/ a bunch of worthless and only interesting-to-me musings.

Basically- is there any other way to do this than just linking to a new blog? I’d rather not.

Thoughts? Help me!

I think I’m going to start writing reviews/thoughts more often about music, movies, food, books, whatever. Why? Because I think it would be fun.

I’m still new at all this stuff, but I think I can make another ‘tab’ thing up at the top and just post on that page. Is that true? We’ll find out.

If you care, get ready to see what Brad has to say about No Country for Old Men, “The River Why” by David James Duncan, Vampire Weekend, the new Nada Surf album, Lost, and whatever else I choose.