I am very honored to have my song -- "I'm Still In Love (w/You)" -- in the new David Koepp directed romantic comedy Ghost Town starring Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear and Tea Leoni.

You can buy it below, and the B side, "Love Lets You See" -- a jaunty little garage nugget I wrote for the end credits. Though it didn't make the movie, it's still a tasty piece of pop-rock confection.

Bill Dixon Orchestra
17 Musicians in Search of a Sound: Darfur (AUM Fidelity)

Few jazz innovators or heroes of the avant-garde are as little known beyond the cognoscenti as Dixon. An utterly distinctive trumpeter who pioneered the use of extremely non-standard timbres on his instrument, he is also an improviser and composer of boundless imagination who applied that adventurous deployment of timbres to works of uncompromising artistry with a painterly sense of color and abstraction unlike anyone else’s jazz.

Much of the buzz surrounding the revival of Equus revolves around the Broadway debut of Daniel Radcliffe, best known for his Harry Potter role in the very successful series of movies. I’ve never seen a Harry Potter movie, but I was excited to see the play itself for a different reason. I saw the original production, which had come to Broadway after it had premiered in London back in 1973. The other lead role, that of psychiatrist Martin Dysart, was originated on Broadway by Anthony Hopkins, who gave a dynamic and memorable performance, and was later played by Richard Burton, who recreated the role for the film version.

It's been nearly two weeks since the suicide of David Foster Wallace and besides the shock, what's been rattling round in my head is the question, what would he have written next? The stories untold. The blank essays. I was wondering, even before he died, how DFW was going to respond to the well-meaning blast he got from critic James Wood in Wood's marvelous recent book, How Fiction Works,. Wood was too smart to go snarky on Wallace (and as much as confessed to it not hours after the news) and Wallace was too smart not to ingest the knowledge and spin it into something unseen, and wonderful. At least that's what I hoped. Now, I know. We won't hear anything.

I suppose I should have a clever theme to tie all these together, but the best I can do is that with one exception they’re all recent and I like them all (and I stick to popular genres -- no classical, jazz, blues, etc.). First up are six new releases, followed by one that’s two years old, followed by five reissues.

Tricky: Knowle West Boy (Domino)

Tricky's first album in five years, and his best in ten, or maybe even since Pre-Millennium Tension in 1996, is occasionally a return to his Maxinquaye/PMT style and definitely their mood, though the first track is as drastic a departure from any of his previous styles as you could imagine: jazzy, cool, laid-back.

“Edgar Allan Poe’s Masque of the Red Death & The Tell-Tale Heart & The Bells”

A strange wind has blown us a dark delicacy from Los Angeles in the form of Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group. Breaking more than the fourth wall, this staged adaptation of Poe, currently playing at The St. Luke’s Theatre, is a welcomed change from the norm.

If you’re looking for a night of traditional theater, this is not the show for you. However, if you’d to take a gamble on something you haven’t seen before, then look no further. The audience is attacked from all angles, including the lobby, as blood and sexuality ooze from the stage, providing a taste of the dark side for lovers of the macabre.

Jobriath: Jobriath & Creatures of the Street (Collector's Choice)

Jobriath set out to be a star of stratospheric proportions; what he became, if he was remembered at all, was the leper boy of Glam. Excluded from features and books on the subject, he was written off, and written out of, the picture. The Bowie clone and wannabe, a parable of hype over content, he fell beneath the radar of the taste-makers and shakers. Maligned and marginalized, he died in obscurity; the man who never came back, but the one who sang in supper clubs in Manhattan for out-of-town tourists. A record industry joke that wasn't all that funny.

The story of real people interacting with ghosts is a movie-making staple, from Ghost to Here Comes Mr. Jordan to Heaven Can Wait to Truly, Madly, Deeply to, most powerfully, It's a Wonderful Life. Since movies allow us, the viewer, to assume point of view of the main character, we get to see the ghosts too, often when nobody else on screen does. When done right, it's a uniquely sweet, yet powerful kind of fantasy that the movies do very, very well.

Ghost Town, the new movie written and directed by David Koepp, joins this company in fine style.

Jake Holmes: Dangerous Times (Private Pressing)

That a new set of songs from Jake Holmes should have slipped without fanfare into the wider world is remarkable, a little sad, but of no real surprise. Holmes, not exactly a name of the household variety, hadn't released an album for thirty years. That Dangerous Times is superbly crafted, sounding like the sort of distinguished fare reviewers dust down their clichés for when delivered by young pretenders (Holmes was born in 1939) isn't a big deal either. Good records come and go, and as good things go, this one went nowhere.

Humbert Humbert once notoriously reasoned that "[b]etween the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as 'nymphets.' "

Yes, the innocent have become temptresses. The victims villainesses. And this is the fate of prepubescent Lewellen (Dakota Fanning), a "white trash" Lolita in Deborah Kampmeier's semi-autobiographical ode to guiltlessness lost, Hounddog.

Metallica: Death Magnetic (Warner Bros.)

In a weird way, Metallica has kind of become like Star Wars. While the conventional wisdom dictates that both have lost their way, that they were better in their early days, true fans of both know this just isn’t the case. Sure, Metallica’s previous release, 2003’s St. Anger, wasn’t their best album any more than The Clone Wars was the best Star Wars movie, but both have some great moments.

Cops. They're everywhere. All over my city. All over my TV set. On prime time, all over cable, syndicated reruns, at the movies. Good ones. Bad ones. Even the occasional psycho. There's the CSI franchise, the Law & Order franchise, reality cop shows, forensic shows, psychic detectives, even pet detectives. Makes a person wonder if we are truly in last days of a civilized society and whether the creative suits greenlighting this programming are so cynical about our society that they truly believe that criminals are running the asylum. I'm indifferent to most of it, save for my Tuesday night fix of FX's The Shield.

Three Balconies: Stories and a Novella
by Bruce Jay Friedman (Biblioasis)

Time was serious writers wrote to entertain audiences. Not entertain in the “anything for a laugh” style we’re so accustomed to, but to move, to captivate, to probe, to scare, to inspire, to confuse. From Dickens to Tolstoy to Chandler to O’Connor to Lardner to Dahl to, even, Hemingway, these artists used stories and storytelling to get to people. These days movies, and mostly crappy movies, have taken over this role.

100% black cotton pre-shrunk t-shirt with red silk screen image.

Once they're gone, they won't be available in this style again.

$24.00 plus $6.00 for shipping and handling. Large and XL only.