(Nicole:) One of the best responses we've ever had for our LNMC was one that our very own NonnyMouse suggested. It's been a while since she's contributed anything, so I asked her if she'd like to do another one. Here it is:

I still have records. (For those of you who are too young to remember Viet Nam, never mind Watergate, records are those big, black Frisbee-like things in flimsy cardboard album covers.) At only 150 albums or so, I wouldn't actually call it a ‘collection'; it's just a motley hodgepodge of what I bought the last time I was a student in college. Thirty years ago. They all got put into storage in the States when I moved to Europe. More than twenty years ago. I shipped them over about five years ago. None of them have been played in a quarter of a century. But now... I have a record player. So I'm going through them all, deciding on which I treasure enough to ship once more.

I bought William Ackerman's ‘It Takes A Year' brand-new in 1977. Thirty years later, I carefully extracted the record, holding it by the edges (never touch the grooves with your bare fingers!) and laid it carefully onto the turntable, made sure there was no lint or dust on the vinyl, positioned the tone arm exactly right before lowering the brand-new stylus ever so gently onto the lead-in edge and listened to music I last heard before Britney Spears was even a zygote. Maybe it was because memories are so powerful, the music you hear in your 20's does something to your heart - I don't know. What I do know is I stood in front of an old record player, listening to the hauntingly beautiful ‘The Impending Death of the Virgin Spirit', crackles and hiss and all, and wept.

The closest I can give you to the real thing is this YouTube clip of a cover done by Adam Werner and Michael Manring.

William Ackerman founded Windham Hill Records, now sadly defunct, won some Grammies, gave up the craziness of the music business and moved away from California to the Vermont countryside where he does a few concerts, plays anywhere, even private living rooms, and is still quietly recording some of the best acoustical music known to the human soul. His newest CD, ‘Returning', features ‘Virgin Spirit', both because Ackerman wanted to refine the emotional connection of the work, and because in the past 30 years technology has vastly improved sound quality. Yet while the sound may be richer, the nuances more distinct, the music more matured, there will still be - at least for me - something very moving and unique about that older version, made long ago when we were both young and rough around the edges, that defined my life then, and still defines it now.Tonight's LNMC challenge is to share something powerful enough, without lyrics, to have moved you to tears.

(guest blogged by Howie Klein)

A friend turned me on to an indie band from Florida a few years ago--friends of his--he said he was 100% positive I would love. He was right. They're Against Me! They're not exactly a new band, more like an underground band that is just starting to surface. Tom Gabel, the singer and guitar player started playing as Against Me! a decade and a half ago. He was just an impassioned singer-songwriter back then. Now he's an impassioned singer-songwriter with a kick ass punk band behind him. Do you ever hear older folks who were against the War in Vietnam complaining that there are no young musicians making socially relevant music anymore? They're wrong; they're just not going to the right places to listen.

You won't find Against Me on too many corporately owned radio stations or see them on former music TV channels like MTV. A better place to hear and see their music is at MySpace or YouTube. Tonight the band's first video, "White People For Peace," from their Sire Records debut NEW WAVE (which comes out next month) is our LNMC song.

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We're not trying to start any lawsuits here, but let's face it; some songs just sound too much like other songs to be a coincidences. Or do they? Music doesn't usually come with footnotes or bibliographies, so on Friday nights we engage in wild speculation about where our favorite songwriters might have owed someone a hat tip. Welcome to Friday Night Ripoffs (?) at the LNMC.

It pains me to pit two of my favorite songwriters against each other, especially ones that I have lifted a riff or three off of for one band or another, but I just can't see any way that Blake Schwarzenbach of 90's melodic punk gods Jawbreaker wasn't bowing directly toward Bob Mould of 80's melodic punk gods Husker Du when he wrote "Ache". Schwarzenbach has always been a gifted and original songwriter, but it's time he fess up to this here theft (and also high time that he release the supposedly finished album by his new band Thorns of Life, come to think of it.) What do your ears say?

What are some other ripoffs (that don't involve Coldplay) that come to mind?

I went looking to see if there was someone whose birthday it was to feature tonight on the LNMC. I couldn't so I said "screw it, I'll do Nick Drake", and then I looked and saw that today would have been his 61st, had he not (more or less) taken his own life in 1974. Spooky.

The reclusive, tormented, and hugely talented Englander fortunately recorded a trove of music in his short life, nearly all of it spellbinding. Happy Birthday, Nick. Rest well.

Guitar night at the LNMC!

Bridge Of Sighs-Remastered

There's some good older videos that I could not embed.

Last May and September the CLLN Music Club introduced the Bastard Fairies into the mix. Yesterday they finished their new video and asked us if we want to debut it for them. Damn straight, we do! "We're All Going to Hell" started out as a snippet at the end of “The Coolest 8 year old in the World” video, Bill O'Reilly's favorite YouTube ever. The band says everyone in the video is going to hell.

Download | play (mp4 Video) Download | play WMV 23 mgs ...

(includes an F-bomb in the lyrics)

When I was in high school the beatnik age was ending and the hippie age was beginning and there was a short time when the music reflected the transition. The Fugs and Pearls Before Swine were kind of folk and kind of rock and not many people knew what to make of either. Many decades before I came to run Reprise Records, the company signed-- and dropped-- Pearls Before Swine, a band I used to smoke out to once I got to college. The band's pre-Reprise album, One Nation Underground was their masterpiece. I have a suspicion there aren't many LNMC denizens who have heard them, so I asked my pal Lucas to make a YouTube-- he had never heard them either-- and here it is: "Another Time," the first song on the first side of the first album. Think of it as history:

LNMC had a great reaction when we first introduced The Bastard Fairies a few months ago. This week they launched a new video for "A Venomous Tale" exclusively through some cockamamie Windows Media concoction. Thank God the exclusivity lasted about 15 minutes. Robin Davey has done a very nice discussion with... the videographer about the new project that you may find interesting and entertaining. But no matter how much you laugh at that, Yellow Thunder Woman's vocals and the music are absolutely irresistible:

(guest blogged by Howie Klein)

  When Nirvana was putting together Nevermind, an album that set the tone for the rock music of the 90s, they weren't all that famous. They couldn't make their album art budget stretch far enough to use a stock photo of a baby swimming so the photographer they hired, Kirk Weddle paid $200 to some friends of his, Renata and Rick Elden, for their use of their 4 month old son, Spencer, for the shot. In 2001, in honor of Nevermind's tenth anniversary (and his own tenth birthday) Spencer did the shot again for Rolling Stone.Last year Spencer, a Nirvana fan, told the NME that at 15 Nevermind still rocks his world. "You still hear the singles being played on the radio and it just doesn't sound dated. Most bands around today can't even get near to what Nirvana did on that album, and I'll always be happy to be a part of it." Today is Spencer's birthday and LNMC wants to wish him a happy one!

Amnesty International: Make Some Noise is about music with a message.

This ground-breaking venture from Amnesty International mixes music, celebration and action to protect individuals wherever justice, freedom and equality are denied.

With exclusive Lennon covers, artist videos and opportunities to make an impact, it's time to inspire a new generation to stand up for human rights

Green Day performing Working Class Hero:

Your purchase of tracks from Make Some Noise will benefit Amnesty's efforts for Darfur.

Congratulations to C&Ler Adam for his winning Dylan album entry and C&Ler Paul for his winning Springsteen album entry.  Thanks for being part of the LNMC community!