February 2005 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat     1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28           Jan   Mar ABOUT EA ABOUT ROB   TOPICS WE DISCUSS HERE: HOME RANTS BOOKS NOISE COMIX LINKS AND BUDDIES ARTWORK THE RAVEN INTERLUDE   SALON BLOG RANKINGS BLOG UPDATES EA REFERERS TECHNORATI         < £ Salon Bloggers & > Rate Me on BlogHop.com! help? Is my Blog HOT or NOT? Click here to visit Blogster.Net - Top Blogs! Blogroll Me!	Friday, February 11, 2005 Leo the Lion A few weeks ago while cruising eMusic, I happened upon the work of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, a straight-up rock songwriter from New Jersey. Apparently he’s been around for a little while, since he has a few albums out, but how he escaped my notice till now is a mystery I can only attribute to approaching old age and fading hipness.   This guy is good. Really good. Paul Westeberg (Replacements)-in-his-prime good, which is to say, about as great a rock songwriter and performer as America has seen in the past 20 years. He’s got less punk in him than Westerberg, who was really snotty in his early years. Musically, he is more reminiscent of the “New Wave” sound of the late 70s, particularly Graham Parker, The Jam and the early Pretenders. His normal singing voice and delivery bears a marked resemblance to Joe Jackson, another prominent influence, although he is prone to bounce up to a bumble-bee falsetto to add melodic variety. As a lyricist, he is perpetually clever and inventive, if not especially profound. His talent is evident from line to line, as he surprises with unexpected wordplay, complemented with an intense, passionate delivery and some unspeakably catchy hooks.   Leo practices a form of rock-craft seldom seen anymore these days. I’m told he was on Conan O’Brien last night, though I missed it and forgot to record it (sorry, Guy – but there may be a rerun), and he’s in Seattle over the weekend. Hopefully this is a sign of rising popularity. It would be nice to see intelligent, unpretentious guitar-based rock and roll make a comeback. If it does, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists are about as good a choice as any to lead the charge. 9:37:31 AM    Emphasize This! [] © Copyright 2005 Rob Salkowitz. Last update: 3/3/2005; 8:56:46 AM. Emphasis Added Theme designed by Andrew Lueck and Rob Salkowitz.	GUILT BY ASSOCIATION Those with the excellent taste to link to Emphasis Added. Orcinus Mark A.R. Kleinman South Knox Bubba Busy Busy Busy Scott Rosenberg Rayne Today Pesky the Rat Dave Pollard Two Glasses Filchyboy FIONA Marijo's Nashvlog Real Art (and politics and culture) Real Live Preacher Fried Green Al-Qaedas Dr. Omed Perils of Caffeine in the Evening Love During Wartime Ojo Caliente Rush Limbaughtomy Why Your Wife Won't Have Sex... Clever Title Goes Here Different Strings Paulapalooza Avuncular Spectator Suburban Guerilla Codex Religion-Related Injuries Little Hippocrat Live from the Nuke Free Zone Modulator Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart No Code Catnmus I Protest Shouting at the Rain Idiot Wind Brent's Polemics Le Pretre Noir Yet Another Damn Blog Dick Jones' Patteran Pages Andrew Bayer Seablogs Bread Crumbs Kitsap Pundit     Gone but not forgotten: The Raven Patriotically Incorrect Barbaric Yawp Wall of Paul   If you would like to be on this honored list, add a link to Emphasis Added in your blogroll and drop me a line.   RELIABLE SOURCES Big Media, Bloglords, Media Watchdogs, news and opinion cites I frequent, comment on and recommend. ADVOCATES Daily Kos Atrios/Eschaton Josh Marshall Talking Points Memo Kevin Drum/Political Animal Matt Yglesias MyDD Left Coaster Hulabaloo (Digby's Blog) Corrente Brad Delong Sadly, No Altercation Steve Gilliard Oliver Willis No More Mr. Nice Blog The Shrill Blog Rude Pundit Dave Sirota Michael Berube The Blogging of the President Max Speak! Liberal Oasis Open Source Politics Crooked Timber   AUTHORITIES: Juan Cole Taegan Goddard Donkey Rising/Ruy Teixera Ernie the Attorney Media Matters Factcheck.org   AGGREGATORS: Tapped The American Street Cursor Arts and Letters Daily New Republic Online BuzzFlash Slate The Gadflyer   INDISPENSABLE: The Daily Howler Paul Krugman Nathan Newman   CONTRARIAN PERSPECTIVES Reasonable conservatives, libertarians, and wingers I like, or stuff I read to find out what the Dark Side is up to. Secular Blasphemy Jacqueline Passey Happy Carpenter Tacitus Reason American Conservative Weekly Standard National Review Online Opinion Journal (WSJ) Red State Christopher Hitchens USS Clueless (Den Beste) The Economist   AVOCATIONS & OBSESSIONS Various amusements in areas that interest me. COMICS-RELATED: Neil Gaiman Peter David Mark Evanier The Beat Grant Morrison Warren Ellis Will Eisner Denis Kitchen Agency Comicartville Ellen Forney San Diego Comic-Con Exhibit A Press Z-CULT FM   BASEBALL: The USS Mariner Baseball Prospectus   MUSIC: Dragnet Records/A-Frames John Wesley Harding Laura Cantrell   FRIENDS & MISC. Scala House Press SuperSonicSoul