Fiction writers seldom get rock right. Perhaps it’s because they aim for the bleachers—you know, like Cameron Crowe’s Stillwater, the Almost Famous band that was Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers, and Skynyrd rolled into one. Somehow, in trying to achieve too much, most writers don’t achieve anything at all. William Gibson, though, he’s different. In his new novel, Spook Country, the post-science fiction novelist gets at something substantial.

Here, Hollis Henry, the former lead singer from the Curfew (terrible name, I know), is asked by Alberto, a geo-hacking, culture-jamming, Wired-type artist, where the band broke up:

“She looked him in the eye and saw deep otaku focus. Of course that tended to be the case, if anyone recognized her as the singer in an early-nineties cult unit. The Curfew’s fans were virtually the only people who knew the band had existed, today, aside from radio programmers, pop historians, critics, and collectors. With the increasingly temporal nature of music, though, the band had continued to acquire new fans. Those it did acquire, like Alberto, were often formidably serious. She didn’t know how old he might have been, when the Curfew had broken up, but that might as well have been yesterday, as far as his fanboy module was concerned. Still having her own fangirl module quite centrally in place, for a wide variety of performers, she understood, and thus felt a responsibility to provide him with an honest answer, however unsatisfying.”

What I like about this quote is that Gibson, who was born in 1948, nails the granularity and fractionalization of today’s music culture. The Internet has allowed us to bury ourselves inside our own Curfews to the point where few of us seem to realize how inchoate things have become. To borrow a term from Robert Christgau, there is no monoculture anymore. For those of us who want to at least understand the place and appeal of all the Curfews of the world—even if it’s the most surface understanding—the landscape is more treacherous than ever. Any good music critic has been Alberto, with the “deep otaku focus.” (Anyone heard the new Baroness? It totally rules, dude!) But there’s a difference between being that guy and being that guy and knowing which Ravel or U2 record to recommend.

Top-ten lists are due when editors ask for them—usually in November or December of a given year—but I think that editors ask for them months, maybe years, too soon. Sometimes all you can do is guess at a record’s impact. For example, in 2006, one of the metal magazines to which I contribute asked for a year-end list several days before the release of Mastodon’s Blood Mountain, a major-label record that was both highly anticipated and hard to come by. A friend burned me an unmastered, unsequenced leak and I spun it only once or twice before putting it at number one.

By the time the issue hit the newsstands I doubt it would’ve made my top five. But, hey, so it goes. A fellow music critic even admitted as much when a mutual friend solicited our favorite records of recent years (he’s been busy raising a kid). “These are the ones that I still listen to,” the fellow music critic wrote. Which gave me the idea of revisiting an old list. For no good reason, I chose 2003 and set about making a top 10, based on records that I still listen to and own. I didn’t look at the old list or check any year-end summaries until I was done.

Here’s my new list in alphabetical order:

Cult of Luna The Beyond (Earache)
Down in the Basement: Joe Bussard’s Treasure Trove of Vintage 78s, 1926-1937 (Old Hat)
Killing Joke Killing Joke (Red Ink)
Lungfish Love is Love (Dischord)
Mogwai Happy Songs for Happy People (Matador)
Pelican Australasia (Hydra Head)
Supersilent 6 (Rune Grammofon)
David Sylvian Blemish (Samadhi Sound)
Viktor Vaughn Vaudeville Villain (Sound-Ink)
Miroslav Vitous Universal Syncopations (ECM)

And here’s the list I sent to Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop poll in 2003.

Two CDs on my original list (Outkast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below and Dizzee Rascal’s Boy in Da Corner) made it into the Pazz & Jop Top 10. But neither has really stood the test of time, which suggests that maybe folks aren’t pulling out those Basement Jaxx and Fountains of Wayne records either.

Or maybe it’s just that the hippest of hip hop is only good for a quick fix. Though Ta-Nehisi Coates was on the Viktor Vaughn record right away, it only charted at 141 on the P&J list.

For those who’ve heard both, who thinks that Speakerboxxx/The Love Below holds up better than Vaudeville Villain? I doubt it’s few—if any.

Thievery Corporation grows a subsidiary. Rob Garza, one half of your favorite mood enhancer, has spent a good while leading a new rock band, Dust Galaxy, and now has a guest-stacked album to show for it. And a just announced release date and tracklist!

The Dust Galaxy album features a lineup that includes members of Primal Scream, Cornershop, and GoGoGo Airheart. It’s slated to be released on Nov 06, 2007! The tracklist is as follows:

1. Sun in Your Head
2. Limitless
3. Mother Of Illusion
4. It’s all yours
5. River of Ever Changing Forms
6.Sons Of Washington
7. Cherubim Sing
8.Overhead
9. Down
10. Come hear the trumpets
11. Crying to the Night

The album will be released by Garza’s own ESL Music. Expect a healthy dose of psychedelia, garage punk, revolutionary politics and some of Garza’s most heartfelt songwriting.

One of the bands appearing at the John Stabb benefit tomorrow night is Lorelei, a D.C. shoegazer/pre-post-rock act that formed in 1990, put out several records on the excellent Slumberland label, and was the subject of a tour doc, If You Don’t Try, Nothing Ever Happens.

The trio disbanded in 1996, shortly after I saw them at the old Indie Rock Flea market in Arlington, and has only played a few shows since. I can’t say that I remember much about that set, except that Stephen Gardner is really tall, but I’ve been thinking a lot about the old Slumberland scene lately–especially its connections to metal. A lot of those bands were down with near-metallic acts, such as Loop, Swans, and Head of David, and a lot of full-on metal acts are now revisisting Slumberland-type music without trepidation.

Seems like the time is right for a reunion.

Also, from the Dischord site, two new reissues from Guy Picciotto’s Peterbilt catalog, Rain and Deadline, are coming out in September. I’ve only seen the former on the wall at Vinyl Ink, but a fellow music critic and harDCore afficianado assures me that the Deadline, in particular, is an essential listen.

Bob Mould, like most sensible people, has serious issues with James Blunt and Live Earth. This week, Bob weighs in on the folly of rock stars broadcasting their feelings about global warming in song. Got a question for Bob about life in D.C., music, culture, or anything else that springs to mind? Send it here.

“You ever have to beat the shit out of a bunch of dudes in lockup so you wouldn’t get raped?” That was John Stabb’s attempt to defuse the fight he got caught up in on the way home from work on July 17. The former Government Issue frontman sustainted three facial fractures, two broken bones, and a broken nose. Jessica Gould has the story on Stabb, who’ll be the recipient of a benefit show tomorrow night at the Velvet Lounge. Gould also has the story on the Warehouse’s potential new digs, and the latest on beleaguered club H2O.

In One Track Mind, Justin Moyer talks with ukulele rapper Jon Braman about his song “The Weather,” the futility of rallies, and the pleasures of playing a very portable instrument. Braman plays Wednesday, Aug. 15, at 14U Cafe.

Plus our picks: Maggie Serota on British pop-rock sensation the Cribs, Friday at the Black Cat; Dave Nuttycombe on Jette-Ives’ Jette Kelly, leading a six-piece band Friday at the Rock and Roll Hotel; Zoe Pollock on Austin jam band Mingo Fishtrap, Sunday at the Kennedy Center; Serota on Vancouver “psychedelic circus” band They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Tuesday at the Black Cat; and me on Clay Eals, who’ll discuss his book on “City of New Orleans” songwriter Steve Goodman Wednesday at Politics and Prose. (He’ll be joined by Alexandria singer-songwriter Tom Paxton.)

Lee Hazlewood was country music’s answer to Scott Walker, or perhaps Serge Gainsbourg: a stylist of lush, stylish (if au courant) pop melodies and arrangements that stood in perfect contrast to the dark or dryly humorous stories he told in the songs. The most famous example, of course, was his composition “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” whose campy sound still, after 40 years, obscures its wry tongue-in-cheekness (”You keep lyin’ when you oughta be truthin’”), but his other collaborations with Nancy Sinatra– “Summer Wine” and “Some Velvet Morning” being among the best–had a certain haunting mystery to them, as did most of his work.

But I just heard of Hazlewood’s death (after a two-year battle with renal cancer) at 78 this past Saturday…and it’s just sad enough that I can’t quite bring myself to memorialize him with any of his more depressing songs today. So instead I present a clip and a song both guaranteed to bring a smile to your face: the charming “Hey Cowboy,” shown here in a clip from his 1970 Swedish TV special Cowboy in Sweden (where he looks surprisingly like Gainsbourg, by the way).

RIP, Lee.

This week in Ask Bob: Bob Mould on the SST years, whether there’s a book in his future, and what DIY means now that it didn’t back the mid-’80s.

In reviews, Aaron Leitko discusses Magnolia Electric Co.’s sprawling four-CD box set, Sojourner, which can be relentlessly bleak but strangely compelling. “[Frontman Jason] Molina has never been shy about saying exactly how he feels,” Leitko writes. Even if how he feels is often bombed-out and shitty.” (You can hear excerpts from the album here.)

In One Track Mind, Joe Warminsky talks with producer Shaun Sharkey about his collaboration with MC C-Rayz Walz, their new album, Monster Maker, and the kid he “wanted to smack the shit out of.”

This week’s picks: Maggie Serota on Scottish party-pop trio the 1900s, who play at the Rock and Roll Hotel on Friday; Jeffry Cudlin on longtime Bay Area sound collagists Negativland, who address monotheism Sunday at the Warehouse; Justin Moyer on Tokyo Police Club, playing “sugary-sweet pop” Tuesday at the Rock and Roll Hotel; and Amanda Hess on Rupert “The Pina Colada Song” Holmes‘ comedy series Remember WENN, screening Wednesday at the Pickford Theater.

The Fiery Furnaces‘ upcoming album, Widow City, has leaked. After listening to it yesterday as I drove through western Maryland at 4 a.m. (don’t ask), the album feels like a return to form of sorts. The songs are so strong. I wonder if hipsters will ever forgive the brother-sister act for their grandma record, their love for backwards guitars, and carnival keyboards.

Help me answer this question. Listen to “Navy Nurse” off the new record and give us your analysis. You can find one blogger playing solid defense here.

I haven’t seen Chad Clark onstage since Smart Went Crazy was writing Con Art, so I was kind of surprised to see Beauty Pill’s Grateful Dead lineup last night at Fort Reno. That’s right, two guitarists, a bassist, a keyboardist, and–this never gets old–two drummers. That’s a lot of musicians to play some indie-tinged art-punk (or is it art-punk-tinged indie rock?), and, well, they put them to good use, even if there was nothing particularly hippie about it. At one point Clark had to explain that he wasn’t being sarcastic when he told the audience, “I love you.” And the band finished with a song about how pacifism isn’t always the answer. Which is why I find this band is so excellent. There’s no doubt that Clark meant the “I love you” bit, but his lyrics have such a sharp–and, yes, sarcastic–edge that it would be easy to take him the wrong way. And, shit, who else in D.C. is going to get up on stage at Fort Reno and say that, well, sometimes reason and negotiation fail us and we have to use force? (That is, aside from a State of Alert reunion, but I don’t think the fights in those songs were preceded by reason or negotiation.)

The band chugged on through the rain, playing songs that I don’t recognize, because I’ve never heard any of their records. (Service ain’t what it was back in the Meltzer-and-Bangs heyday. An average week finds a clutch of death metal records in my mailbox and that’s about it.) But prior knowledge was unnecessary. I can’t believe all the youngsters standing and dancing and huddling in the rain were longtime fans or even knew anything about the band they were watching. There was something about seeing all of those disparate musicians gathered together onstage and playing this odd-but-urgent art music (and sometimes with a skillet) that was enough for any serious music fan who would’ve happened by. None of the songs stuck in my head, but none of them needed to. The experience was enough.

So, guys, where’s the next record?

I was too busy noshing on Cool Ranch Dorritos to catch the Charm Offensive last night at Fort Reno–sorry guys–but I did manage to see all of Medications‘ set and five or six songs of Mary Timony’s set.

To these ears, Medications has never sounded better. They played two songs that I didn’t recognize, songs that are much sunshinier and more straightforward than the math-pop of their EP and full-length. Plus, bassist Chad Molter is singing more now, which can only help. The guy’s got a great voice (and a great falsetto).

Molter and Medications guitarist Devin Ocampo are both a part of Mary Timony’s trio, and both bands have a similar sound: an off-kilter middle-ground between prog and pop. One of the folks I was with kept name checking Yes as Timony’s set progressed, but we’re talking Yes on the radio–you know, “Roundabout”–not Tales From Topographic Oceans.

The comparisons to Timony’s old band Helium are obvious: guitar-bass-drums trio with Timony leading the way. But I saw Helium a number of times in the ’90s and never enjoyed them as much as I enjoy her new band.

Back when her last record came out (Ex Hex, her first after leaving Matador), I had an exchange with a higher-up in the Matador administration in which we both agreed that Timony is making her best music in years. He said, since Helium’s first record. I think since Autoclave.

Whatever. There was a point last night when the sun had just gone down and the only thing illuminating the band was a streetlight. They were just silhouettes with halo-like outlines. The music had taken a darker turn and the image of the figures doing their work against the blue-black of the DC sky was magical to behold.

Finished the night at Guapos, of course, with bean burrito and dos Dos Equis.