Pulling into Cleveland in a seven-seater tour van

I saw the Old 97s the other night, and I just have to say that they are damn good. Really damn good. It's been a few years since the last time I caught them live -- but there was a stretch there in the late '90s, early oughts, where I did things like travel to South Carolina to see them play, or stand in line at the Fez in NYC to see lead singer Rhett Miller's solo shows. So it was with great hospitality (and beer) that I welcomed them back to Cleveland, and myself back into the fold of a Bloodshot Records-like envelope of "insurgent country" obsession.

Following an immensely entertaining band called Ha Ha Tonka -- who, like Thunderbirds Are Now!, have entered my own personal Pantheon of opening acts that are impressive rather than yawn-inducing -- the Old 97s took the stage and played for more than two hours, reminding me that they are among the hardest-working bands out there. With a set list that long, they performed nearly everything I wanted to hear (with the notable exception of "Singular Girl," which I love not only because of the lyrical simile, "Talking to you girl / is like long division"). Lots off "Satellite Rides," which surprised me because I did expect a little more from the more recent "Drag It Up." But since it's ALL SO FUCKING GOOD, who cares?!?

I took a couple friends with me who are new to the Old 97s. At the conclusion of the show, one of them, Tiffany, turned to me and said in reference to notable looker Rhett Miller: "You could have warned me that he is so hot." The other friend, Chris, simply stated in the most hetero way possible, "He is one handsome son of a bitch." Guitarist Ken Bethea is looking pretty hot these days, too, in a way I've not noticed before. Perhaps it had to do with his wrinkled t-shirt that topped off his perfectly pressed yellow-green pinstriped pants, which boasted not only a perfect break but also the mark left from the hanger. They fit him perfectly, if you know what I mean, which I know you do.

Anyway. Totally not the point. But kind of the point, as it's no lie that Rhett (and, I suppose now, Ken) is not unpleasant to look at and therefore adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the Old 97s experience. But really, he's not all sweaty scruffy hair, beauty marks and s-e-x-y stage presence. His lyrics and music -- and the music he makes with Murry, Ken and Philip -- are just brilliant. Anyone who can write something like, "I believe in love / but it don't believe in me" or "And you'll try to find a doctor / who can prescribe an elixir / that will make everything better / except your late wife and her lover" is top-notch in my book. All the hotness is just a bonus.

The rock manifesto of a 32-year-old who's gotten a little out of touch

I've been thinking a lot about music lately: why I love it, what it means to me, why I've gotten away from it in the past few years. I'm having my own little sonic rediscovery, if you will. I don't have any good reason for letting the daily enjoyment of the rock and roll slip away from my life; I am not old, I do not have children, my CDs were not burned in a house fire. Maybe it's a consequence of working at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum for six and a half years: at some point, rock and roll became my daily grind and, in retrospect, I do not appreciate that. I had Word documents on the subject matter. Rock and roll exists in the heart, mind and soul, not on a shared server.

So it is with great relief that I welcome music back into my day-to-day life like an old friend whose companionship used to be more vital to my well being than oxygen. In much the same way humankind's ancestors slithered out of primordial sludge, my 2007 Great Music Reawakening began slowly. In January I saw Sloan: always a favorite, they can do no wrong (even on "off" nights, which this was, because at least half the band was stricken with some sort of rock-deflating illness). In March a fortunate gene mutation helped me develop little legs, the better to traverse the rock and roll landscape: Australia's phenomenal but little-appreciated-in-these-parts You Am I played one of the best shows I've ever seen (and that includes Pearl Jam at the old Chicago Stadium on March 10, 1994, the night that will live on as The Night I Realized What Music Could Do). In May I was surviving like the fittest, and broke one of my old stupid habits of not seeing live shows of bands that I was not totally and completely mind-alteringly into: I saw Southern Culture on the Skids at one of the best live music venues in town. (Take that, naysayers! You know who you are.)

(In order to understand the importance of my going to three shows in three months, it is critical to realize that I used to go to shows all the time. Certainly when I lived in Chicago, but even after I moved back to Cleveland. There was even a time where I would drive all over the damn place, to states near and far, across Mason-Dixon lines and international [well, Canadian] borders, to see the finest in live rock and roll. But then I randomly stopped. As previously stated, there is no good reason for this other than the fact that, I don't know, I might have been tired.)

The live element is returning for me. I'm planning at least two shows in June, followed by what is sure to be the TRIUMPHANT return of the Old 97s to Cleveland in July. Beyond that, however, is my attendant rediscovery of the recorded music of bands that went missing from my life years ago. A lot of this has to do with the (un?)fortunate breaking of the 10-CD changer in my car. I have been forced to bust out some old mix tapes that have been rattling around in my car like coins that appear to be of negligible value but that, taken together, comprise a significant amount of useful American currency. For the first time since Bill Clinton was not having sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky, I am listening to Morphine again. Morphine is (was) a unique, dark, low, sexy three-piece made up of a drummer, a singer/slide bass player and a baritone saxophonist. It is nearly criminal that I have not heard "Thursday" or "All Wrong" or "Super Sex" in a decade. I mean, what is up with that?

Morphine is just one example. Soul Coughing. That is another example. Remember Soul Coughing? I didn't, for a long time there. But I am once again enjoying how "Screenwriter's Blues" perfectly captures the sound of Los Angeles in the middle of the night (or, I suppose, how I imagine Los Angeles would sound in the middle of the night, seeing as how I've only been out and about in the middle of the night in Los Angeles once, and I feel like that's what it sounded like). Midnight Oil? They deserve to be listened to, savored, for at least one hour per day. That is the least I can do for a band that writes lyrics about Holden wrecks and four wheels' scaring cockatoos and road trains and Kelly's country and our poet Henry Lawson and ANZAC Day and Truganini and Norfolk Island pines and currency lads -- a band that awakens such a strong desire within me to visit Australia that when I hear them I am thisclose to clicking over to the QANTAS Web site to see if I can get any good deals from LAX to SYD.

I just finished reading Nick Hornby's Songbook, and his connections with the songs about which he writes were, for me, the straws that broke the camel's back in terms of getting my rock and roll lifestyle back in order. I'm not familiar with all of the songs in Hornby's book, but it doesn't matter. His articulation of precisely why the songs touch him is so universal that we all can apply them to our favorite compositions. I don't get a deep-seated, visceral feeling of warmth and comfort when I hear Paul McCartney because he is such an astounding bass player and a brilliant songwriter (though he is both of those things); my knees get weak because both Beatles and post-Beatles Paul McCartney sounds like the entirety of the 11-year relationship my husband and I have shared to this date. I don't smile idiotically when I listen to Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot because of Jeff Tweedy's roots-music-influenced genius or because I once had a crush on a girl who fell in love with a heavy metal drummer; YHF floods my senses with what it was like to travel around the country with my best friend in 2002, trailing Sloan, losing our ability to remember what it was like just to enjoy a band from afar, gaining a friendship that will last forever.

How could I have pushed something so powerful and personal to the back burner? I should be flogged for my behavior but, like a loyal and loving dog, the music was waiting for me to return, happily greeting me with its fucking awesome rock and roll leash in its mouth, welcoming me home.